The Classical Journal 1944-02: Vol 39 Iss 5

SOURNAL

Number 5

The Elephant in Ancient War Richard Glover
The Greek Behind Latin Paul Friedlander
Athletic Honors in the Fifth Century George E, Mylonas

Notes
An Early ex Libris Dorothy M. Schullian

Some African Variants of “Bucca, Bucca”
Paul G. Brewster

At the Theater Hubert McNeill Poteat
Sine Ira et Studio H. W. L. Freudenthal

,

Harvard Studies in reas gare

The
» Pemtin, Willa Kelly, ee cde

“Fyfe, Ww. Hamihon, Aristotle's Art re of Posty
ele Sie sim mo

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278

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The
CLASSICAL JOURNAL

VotumE XXXIX FEBRUARY, 1944 NUMBER 5

THE ELEPHANT IN ANCIENT WAR

fe 302 B.c. a strange cavalcade might have been seen wending its
way from Baluchistan across Iran to Babylon and on toward
Ipsus in Asia Minor. The successors of Alexander were squaring up
for the battle that was to settle the fate of the eastern Mediter-
ranean, Ptolemy and Seleucus measuring themselves against
Antigonus; and five hundred war elephants, for which Seleucus
had bartered Alexander’s Indian provinces, were coming to the
fray. Nearly all reached Ipsus in fighting trim, which says much
for the efficiency of Seleucus’ staff, as a grown elephant eats six
hundred pounds of green fodder a day,' and the organization of
the great beasts’ commissariat on the march of some three thou-
sand miles must have been no small problem. It was worth the
trouble. Seleucus’ overwhelming superiority in elephants, 480 to
75, won the day.? He brought them back from the battle to
Apamea on the Orontes, where he built stables for them;’ and so
the elephant, already well tested by the Successors, became one of
the regular arms of Mediterranean war.‘ Egypt soon started ele-
phant hunts in the Soudan and down the coast of the Red Sea;
the Ptolemies could not fall behind the Seleucids in armaments
while Coele-Syria remained a bone of contention. Even Pyrrhus
in remote Epirus secured a few, and Carthage, ever quick to copy,

1 Sir Samuel White Baker, Wild Beasts and Their Ways, 22-24.

* Plutarch (Demetrius, 28) gives Seleucus only 400 elephants against Antigonus’ 75,
but Diodorus (xx, 113) says that before the battle Seleucus had 480 in his winter
quarters in Cappadocia.

* Strabo xv1, 2, 10.

‘ The best recent discussion in English of the elephant in war is in W. W. Tarn’s
Hellenistic Military and Naval Developments: Cambridge, at the University Press (1930).

5 E. Bevan (History of Egypt under the Ptolemaic Dynasty: London, Methuen [1927],
175) dates these elephant hunts from the reign of Ptolemy II.

257

Sn ht Ral ST

258 RICHARD GLOVER

raised a native elephant corps from the forests of Mauretania,
once she learnt their value.’ After their victory in the Second
Punic War the Romans adopted the elephant into their army and
used him in the Macedonian and Syrian Wars.’

Every weapon has its own characteristics and aptitudes, which
dictate particular conditions and methods for its employment if it
is to succeed in producing the results expected of it. So the ele-
phant now triumphed, now failed in battle, according to his com-
mander’s knowledge of his characteristics and intelligence in
employing him; sometimes, too, the opponents’ knowledge of an
elephant’s weaknesses worsted him, even when he was used by
the ablest of commanders.

What, then, were the military characteristics of the elephant?
It is tempting to compare him to the tank, but this analogy is not
really close. The tank with its armor is impervious to the ordinary
weapons of infantry and can smash through field fortifications.
The elephant could claim neither of these qualities, but instead he
had a highly-strung nervous system which was easily upset, and
so it is rather to cavalry that he must be compared.

Cavalry had two values in battle, the shock of the horse’s
charge, which knocked men down, and the sabre with which his
rider ran through the enemy who faced him or ripped up those who
fell. The elephant’s characteristics were similar, but had a different
emphasis. His shock value was far greater than the horse’s; not
only was he bigger, but he had weapons of his own with which he
fought. He trampled the men he felled, or gored them with his
tusks;* or he might kick, and an elephant’s kick, as quick as a
pony’s, will send a man flying.® In addition he might bear armed
riders. The elephants of the Seleucids and Ptolemies carried how-
dahs (‘‘towers” the ancients called them) with a crew of four men,
says Livy;!° the author of 1 Maccabees indeed alleges that each
of Antiochus Eupator’s elephants carried “thirty and two strong

* The Carthaginians did not use elephants against Agathocles or Pyrrhus.
7 Livy xxxu, 27; xxxv1, 4; xu, 62.

8 Polybius 1, 74.

* Baker, op. cit., 70 f.

0 Livy xxxvu, 40.

ELEPHANT IN ANCIENT WAR 259

men beside the Indian that ruled him’’;“ but this statement must
be numbered among the more ambitious exaggerations of histor-
ians. The crews might be armed with arrows, as at Bathzacharias,
where they were employed against infantry; or with pikes, as at
Raphia, where a clash of rival elephant corps was expected.” But
towers and crews were not essential. Given a good mahout to guide
him into battle, the elephant was perfectly competent to do his
own fighting; and the ancient authorities seem to make no mention
of towers on Carthaginian elephants.

Such an arm, so specially suited to shock action, might be ex-
pected to achieve its best results when employed offensively and
in masses on open ground. Troops who lacked elephants instinc-
tively sought rough and hilly ground for security. This is what
Matho and Spendius did in the Libyan war for fear of Hamilcar’s
elephants and cavalry,“ and for two years after the terrible defeat
of Regulus the Romans never dared “‘to come down on level
ground at all, all because of their fear of an elephant charge.””™

This same defeat of Regulus in 255 B.c. is the classic instance
of how elephants should be used and how they should not be op-
posed, and it is curious that the man who realized how they
should be handled was not a Carthaginian, but a newcomer to
African warfare, the Spartan mercenary Xanthippus.” On being
given the command, he led the Carthaginian host down from the
hills where they had avoided action and sought battle on the open
plain. Regulus, on the other side, was worried by the elephants
opposing him, and to meet them he massed his men in depth in
two heavy columns. Now, it is correct enough to mass men to-
gether to resist a cavalry charge, for a horse will not charge home
against a firm body of men armed with spears or fixed bayonets if
the men have nerve and discipline enough to stand their ground,
but a charging elephant is another matter. Probably no arrange-

11 I Maccabees vi. The elephant’s maximum load is in the neighborhood of twelve
to fourteen hundredweight, according to Baker, op. cit., 79.

2 Josephus, Antiquities xu, 9, 4.

% Polybius v, 84.

M4 Td., 1, 84.

Id., 1, 39.

6 Td., 1, 33.

EE

260 RICHARD GLOVER

ment could have pleased Xanthippus more. He deployed his ninety
odd elephants in line before his men and opened the battle by order-
ing them to charge the Roman right, combining thereby shock and
concentration—the mass use of the arm in one place at one time.
When the elephants fell upon the wretched Roman soldiery, the
latter’s dense formation, if not their courage, made all flight im-
possible, and, says Polybius, “knocked down and trampled upon,
they perished in heaps upon the field.” Such Romans as came
through the terrible line of elephants alive survived only to be
spitted upon the pikes of the Carthaginian phalanx which the
shrewd Spartan had placed a little to the rear. On the other wing
the Roman left was doing well until they were swallowed up in the
disaster to their right, and from the battle only two thousand
Romans escaped; the effect of the defeat on their morale was al-
most equally crushing.”’

Where a commander had not enough elephants to cover his
front, like a screen of tanks, it was best to concentrate them on the
wings. This was done by Pyrrhus at Heraclea,’* by Hannibal at
the Trebia,!® and by the Romans at Cynoscephalae,”® where their
elephants caught the phalanx of the Macedonians on Philip’s left
wing in disorder and routed it at their first onset. This latter
battle, fought in the midst of Balkan hills, is a rare instance of the
effective use of elephants in steep country. It was not merely a de-
sire to avoid frittering away their great elephant arm in driblets
that induced commanders to place their elephants upon the wings.
That was the place where the enemy’s cavalry would normally be
found, and elephants had as damaging an effect upon horses’
nerves as the camels of Cyrus the Great had on the cavalry of
Croesus. Even a few elephants could sometimes rob their opponent
of any help he might reasonably expect from a large force of
cavalry. Thus Antiochus I, in 278 B.c., owed his victory over a
Gallic army, strong in cavalry, to a mere sixteen elephants.”

7 Td., 1, 39.

18 Plutarch, Pyrrhus 17.

19 Polybius m1, 72-74; Livy xxx, 55.
% Jd., xvi, 25.

* Lucian, Zeuxis and Antiochus 8-11.

ELEPHANT IN ANCIENT WAR 261

Seleucus’ strength in elephants at Ipsus clinched the day by pre-
venting Demetrius’ cavalry from regaining that lost battle, as the
return of Desaix with his horsemen restored Napoleon’s lost battle
of Marengo. Indeed, the Hellenistic kings seem at first to have
looked upon their elephants chiefly as a means of nullifying enemy
cavalry, for which reason Xanthippus deserves credit for some
originality in so effectively hurling his elephants against the
Roman foot.

It followed, of course, that if you had elephants on your side,
you must get your own cavalry horses accustomed to them, as
Tarn notes, adding that this seems always to have been done.”
But at least one commander omitted to do so, that most engaging
and enterprising failure, Antiochus III, the man who restored an
all but ruined empire only to be remembered for his great defeats—
Raphia, Thermopylae, Magnesia. Everyone knows how, when war
broke out between him and Rome, he recklessly invaded Greece
with some ten thousand men, a force, as the historian remarks,
barely sufficient to hold Greece, and far too small to wage war with
the Romans.” Compelled to adopt the defensive, he attempted to
hold the famous pass of Thermopylae, but was driven from it, and
out of the rout but two hundred men escaped; the reason was that
the elephants had first entered the defile, and the infantry had
difficulty in passing them, while the cavalry could not pass them
at all, because of their horses’ terror.”

Obvious as the advantage derived from the mass use of ele-
phants may seem, it was sometimes systematically neglected.
At the battle of Magnesia Antiochus III deliberately scattered
eighteen elephants in couples up and down his front between the
ten divisions of his center. What decisive effect they could have
is a little hard to see. Doubtless Antiochus felt that an elephant or
two here and there would be a support to hard-pressed infantry.
Some moral support they might be, but no other support at all,

2 W. W. Tarn, Hellenistic Military and Naval Developments, 97.

% Livy xxxv, 43: Vix ad Graciam nudam occupandam satis copiarum, nedum ad sus-
tinendum Romanum bellum.

™“ Livy xxxv1, 19:... elephanti . . . quos pedes aegre paeterire, eques nullo poterat
modo, equis timentibus.

% Livy xxxvu, 40.

262 RICHARD GLOVER

and though insufficient for shock action, they did a good deal of
damage to their own side when once wounded. This is another
example of that old temptation to have a little of something every-
where, which is so common in war and so unfailingly results in
universal insufficiency. Yet a later Seleucid carried the dispersal
principle still further. In the army of the boy king Antiochus
Eupator “they appointed,”’ says the author of 1 Maccabees, “for
every elephant one thousand men armed with coats of mail and
with helmets of brass on their heads; and besides this for every beast
were ordained five hundred men of the best. These were ready at
every occasion; wheresoever the beast was, and whithersoever the
beast went, they went also, neither departed they from him.””
This is a complete negation of the principle that elephants should
be used en masse for concentrated shock action, but in justice it
must be pointed out that the author of 1 Maccabees is describing a
campaign in rough hill country, where opportunities for shock ac-
tion would be few. In any other sort of country such a dispersal
could only be attributed to an utter misunderstanding of the
characteristics of a very potent arm.

Another folly of which stupid commanders were capable was the
use of elephants to attack fortifications. The real live elephant,
unlike the Victorian ornamental china elephant, has no hock, and
so cannot jump. Therefore, like a tank which cannot cross a trench
wider than the length of its wheel base, an elephant was stopped by
a trench if it was wider than the length of his stride and if its sides
would not crumble. So, as Sir Samuel Baker wrote in the 1880’s,
no elephants in India escaped from the keddahs in which they
were captured, for Indian elephant hunters dug a trench within
the palisade of their keddah; but in Ceylon, where this precaution
was omitted, a newly captured herd would sometimes crash
through the palisade that confined them and escape.”’ So too, in
the ancient world, nearly every attempt to use elephants to attack
an entrenched enemy seems to have been a failure, usually a disas-
trous failure. For, unlike the tank, an elephant is made of flesh
and blood and resents becoming an animated pin cushion, and that

% IT Maccabees v1, 34. See also Josephus, op. cit., xu, 9, 4.
7 Baker, op. cit., 56.

ELEPHANT IN ANCIENT WAR 263

was what he generally became on these occasions as his inacessi-
ble foe pelted him with javelins, arrows, and every conceivable
missile until in desperation he turned and bolted. The only differ-
ence between a charging and a bolting elephant is the direction in
which he is going; whichever he is doing, it is equally undesirable
to be in his way, for if you are, he will assuredly trample you
down. A wounded, maddened elephant who got out of control
and bolted back toward his own troops at once became as great a
danger to them as he was intended to be to the enemy. That is
how the Carthaginians presented the Romans with the victory
of Panormus, in 250 B.c.”* Metellus lured the Carthaginian ele-
phants up to the moat and wall of the town and then threw his
opponents into disorder by routing their elephants back against
them with heavy volleys of missiles; after that he had only to
make a prompt sortie to secure an easy triumph over an enemy
already half beaten. Here was one risk of which a commander
must beware. If his elephants were successful, his worries were
almost always over, and his battle won; if they were worsted, they
nearly always involved their side in their ruin. Raphia is perhaps
the only ancient battle won by a side whose elephants were
routed, or lost by one whose elephants triumphed; it is also unique
in being a battle where each side was strong in elephants, and the
rival elephant corps seem each to have monopolized the attention
of the other. There was but one sure way of preventing an ele-
phant who had got out of hand from wreaking destruction on his
own side, and that a drastic way; namely, to kill him then and
there. Hasdrubal, Hamilcar’s son, was the first to use it. At the
Metaurus he had given each of his mahouts a chisel and a ham-
mer, and ordered them to drive the chisel home into their mounts’
spinal column at the point where head and neck joined, as soon
as the animals threatened their own side. In that fatal battle more
elephants were thus slain by their own mahouts than were killed
by the Romans.”®

Tarn gives the African elephants of Hanno in the Libyan war
credit for storming the rebels’ entrenched camp at Utica in 240

%8 Polybius 1, 40.
® Livy xxvu, 49.

264 RICHARD GLOVER

B.c.*° It is worth noticing, however, that Polybius reports that
Hanno had brought catapults and siege gear from Carthage and
had encamped before Utica;** and as that methodical, unenter-
prising general would hardly have brought all these engines from
Carthage if he had not intended to use them, it is likely that the
entrenchments were fairly well leveled before the elephants were
sent against them. This suggestion finds some confirmation in
Polybius’ language;* and, if true, it robs the elephants of any con-
siderable credit for storming the fortifications.

So much for right and wrong ways of using elephants in battle
if you had them. What tactics would enable a commander who
lacked them to meet his opponent’s elephants successfully?

One naturally thinks first of Alexander’s famous defeat of Porus
on the Hydaspes,* a battle reminiscent of Wagram, both in being
the hardest fought of the conqueror’s victories to date, and in the
difficulties to be overcome—the powerful and stubborn foe on the
farther bank of a wide and rapid stream, the long waiting, the
frequent feints, and the final successful crossing of the river under
cover of an island; but there the parallel ends. The Archduke
Charles had no such new weapon to bring against Napoleon as
Porus had against Alexander in his elephants, and the Mace-
donian’s is accordingly the finer victory. Yet it is hard to say
whether this victory was won by Alexander’s genius or merely lost
by Porus’ blundering; certainly a genius can force an ordinary
man to blunder, and Porus did blunder. By first allowing Alexan-
der to seize the initiative and rout his cavalry, he lost his chance
to concentrate his two hundred elephants in one grand mass
assault upon the Macedonian infantry, who themselves took the
initiative and attacked the elephants; furthermore, the Indian
foot, who were formidable in numbers, made little show of fighting.
Accordingly, it is hard to extract from this battle any set of prin-

%° W. W. Tarn, op. cit., 96.

*| Polybius 1, 74.

* When telling how the elephants forced their way into the camp, he uses for “camp”
the word xapeufod4 which would imply rather the living and sleeping quarters of the
camp than its fortification; I have to thank my friend Dr. G. Bagnani for calling my
attention to this. Cf. Polybius 1, 7.

* Arrian v, 9-19; Curtius vu, 13 f.; Diodorus xvu, 87 f.

ELEPHANT IN ANCIENT WAR 265

ciples that would serve as a guide for meeting elephants upon
another field. All honor, however, is due to the Macedonian in-
fantry who dared to close with the great beasts; at no little cost
to themselves they proved both that accurate volleys of missiles
could make the elephant a menace to his own side, and that deter-
mined infantry could slay as well as wound him—and that was
something. Ultimately, however, a regular system of tactics was
worked out by which the elephant could be defeated even when he
was competently employed. Infantry must be able to keep out of
his way and yet inflict injuries upon him; they must not, therefore,
face an elephant charge in unbroken lines, but must leave gaps
through which the beasts might pass harmlessly. The finest exam-
ple of the employment of these tactics is Scipio’s management of
Zama. Few battles are more interesting.** There, as at Waterloo,
the two acknowledged masters of the age met to end in one day’s
fighting a war of nearly twenty years’ duration. There Hannibal
had eighty elephants and Scipio had none. Hannibal used his ele-
phants as one would expect of him, and as Zanthippus had done
before him. He deployed them in one body before the rest of his
troops and ordered them to charge the Roman infantry—shock
action applied em masse. Then luck turned against him. Some of
his elephants, before the battle was even begun, were stampeded
by the blare of the Roman trumpets.® Scipio on his side had drawn
up his men in a line of maniples in column, with gaps left between
the maniple columns; true to his expectations, the charging ele-
phants chose the line of least resistance and sought the gaps.
Thereby they failed to do decisive damage but not to receive
wounds, for they exposed their flanks to a hail of darts, and were
driven from the field. It all sounds very simple, but it took the
Romans a long time to evolve this system. It was at Heraclea, in
280 B.c., that they first met the elephant, and yet Zama, in 202
B.C., is the first great battle in which they proved his tactical
master. But it is a mark of genius to find simple solutions to prob-

* Polybius xv, 5-16; Livy xxx, 32-35; Appian vm, 7, 41-47.

*% After many years of experience, Sir Samuel Baker wrote of elephants that in spite
of their impressive size and tremendous strength they are essentially timid creatures;
he quotes an instance of a bull elephant, a beast of courage guaranteed to face a tiger’s
charge, bolting in panic when a hare ran beneath it. Baker, op. cit., 52.

266 RICHARD GLOVER

lems that baffle lesser men, and his rout of Hannibal’s elephants is
one of the things that stamps Scipio as a great captain. And not
only did his infantry defeat the elephants, but his cavalry added to
their discomfiture, which is more surprising, because cavalry was
as a rule helpless before elephants. In Spain, four years before,
Roman horsemen had found it possible to ride up to within range
of elephants, hurl darts into them, and then escape the wounded
brutes’ fury by flight, only to return and repeat the attack.®
Scipio used his cavalry in the same way at Zama. The discovery
of this method meant that cavalry need not now shun elephants,
as did the Macedonian horse at the Hydaspes, but could carry the
attack to them. Scipio’s tactics, one feels, must have gone far to
make the elephant an obsolete arm. Yet how typical it is of the
cautious, conservative race the Romans were, that it was only after
this battle that they adopted the elephant into their army. Their
first elephants seem to have been those which Carthage surren-
dered at the peace.*”

It must raise our respect for the Roman soldier to learn that be-
sides the javelin he could use the sword with effect against ele-
phants. At Magnesia, says Livy, were veterans of the war in
Africa who sought opportunities to run in upon Antiochus’ ele-
phants from behind and ham-string them.** Among African natives
this method of dealing with elephants has been known and prac-
ticed; thus, said Strabo in the first century, the Elephantophogi
of Ethiopia slew elephants,*® and so in the nineteenth century Sir
Samuel Baker found the Hamram Arabs killing them, in much the
same country as the Elephantophogi.*®

* Polybius x1, 24; Appian vim, 7, 41, suggests that these were Numidian cavalry
whose horses were used against elephants at Zama—a condition unlikely in Spain.

37 Polybius xv, 18.

8 Livy xxxvu, 42; Pliny, Natural History vim, 7; Curtius vm, 14.

8 Strabo xv1, 4, 10.

* Baker, op. cit., 71 f. In this connection one cannot refrain from quoting the glorious
valor of the Jew Eleazar at Bathzacharias; how, “eager to get himself a perpetual
name,” he selected the beast on which he thought Antiochus Eupator rode and “crept
under the elephant and thrust him under; and the elephant fell down upon him; and
there he died” (I Maccabees v1, 43-46). The story loses nothing of its vigor on being
translated into the Jacobean English of the Authorized Version. Cf. also Josephus,

Antiquities xu, 9, 4.

ELEPHANT IN ANCIENT WAR 267

There remains one puzzle in the history of war elephants. Why
were Indian elephants more valued than African? As we have
mentioned, ancient armies recruited elephants from both sources;
the Seleucids brought their Indians overland, the Ptolemies
brought theirs to Egypt by boat from the Upper Nile and the Red
Sea coasts.“ On the inferiority of the African elephant ancient
authorities are unanimous, and they are led to declare, contrary
to nature, that the Indian is larger. Raphia is the great battle at
which the rival species met; they would have met at Magnesia if
the Roman commander had not deliberately refrained from pitting
his Africans against Antiochus’ “larger” Indians, says Livy.*? Now
it is just possible that the Romans’ elephants at Magnesia really
were smaller. They were brought from North Africa, where the
elephant once ranged eastward to Syrtis“® and westward round the
Atlantic coast.“ They were extinct there before the sixth century
A.D., says Isidore of Seville,“ and for all we know North African
elephants may have been a smaller subspecies, distinct from the
common or bush elephant of central and southern Africa. There
is today in West Africa an elephant smaller than the Indian,
known to scientists as the forest elephant (Loxodonta Cyclotis) ,“
and it would be tempting to identify the North African elephants
with this species. But we cannot. A distinctive feature of the
forest elephant is the low posture of the head, and the perpen-
dicular carriage of the tusks. This is not the elephant that Car-
thaginian coins show; these beasts carry their heads high and their
tusks horizontally, as does the bush elephant. So the attempt to
prove conclusively that the African elephants of Mauretania were
a smaller race fails. Nor, if it were proven, would it explain the
inferiority of the African at Raphia too. The largest elephants re-

“ Bevan, op. cit., 177 f.

®@ Livy xxxvn, 39.

* Pliny, N. H. vm, 11.

“ Strabo xvu, 3, 5.

“ Isidore, Etymologiae xm, 2, 16.

Glover M. Allen, “The Forest Elephants of Africa,” Proceedings of the Academy of
Natural Sciences of Philadelphia txxxvu (1936), 15-44. For putting me on the track
of this information, I must thank Mr. Eric McDougall, Librarian of the Royal Ontario
Museum of Zoology.

268 RICHARD GLOVER

corded were killed on the upper Nile, and in East Africa, the very
areas from which the Ptolemies’ elephants came. Bevan suggests
that the Egyptian elephants were immature and so too small to
meet the Indians, but he admits that elephant hunts had been
going on so long that the beasts should have been mature by 217
B.c.“” Tarn attributes the defeat of the Africans to their being out-
numbered, as indeed they were, by a ratio of about four to three;**
but those should not be odds heavy enough to cause superior beasts
to run away at once, nor has anyone suggested that the elephant
can count. Another explanation must be sought.

Polybius, whose accuracy on elephants has been impugned,*®
makes no mistake in describing how they fight. “They get,”
writes Polybius, “their tusks entangled and jammed and then push
against one another with all their might, trying to make each other
yield ground until one of them proving superior in strength has
pushed aside the other’s trunk; and when once he can get a side-
blow at his opponent, he pierces him as a bull would with his
horns.’*° Similar descriptions are given by modern writers.*! An
elephant fight, then, begins as a pushing contest, like an English
rugby football scrum. It is one of the commonplaces of English
rugby that a scrum is won not necessarily by the heavier side, but
by the side that ‘packs down” lower; in such a contest a low center
of gravity is the great desideratum. Here the Indian elephant has
the advantage. He rarely stands more than nine feet six inches at
the shoulder, but his legs are short and thick, his back high and
arched, his frame tremendous. The African, with his height and
huge ears and long ivory, may look far the more impressive, but
his height (which is sometimes very near twelve feet) is due to his
length of leg; even if his weight be greater, his center of gravity is
so much higher that he would probably be easily pushed about by
the lower Indian. Few animals can be persuaded to begin a hope-

*” Bevan, op. cit., 177.

Tarn, op. cit., 99; Polybius v, 79, gives Antiochus 102 Indian elephants against
Ptolemy’s 73 African.

“ Tarn, “Polybius and a Literary Commonplace,” Classical Quarterly xx (1926),
98 f.

5° Polybius v, 84.

5 Baker, op. cit., 34.

ELEPHANT IN ANCIENT WAR 269

less fight, and that is perhaps the explanation of the Africans’
failure in the battle of Raphia.

Magnesia in 190 B.c. is almost the last great battle in which ele-
phants had a part.” This is not surprising. Magnesia marks the de-
cline of the Hellenistic kingdoms, and only a royal exchequer or an
oligarchy of rich merchant princes could maintain a war stud of the
great beasts. Rome, as we have noticed, was never very much in-
terested in them. Then, unexpectedly, elephants reappear in the
campaign of Thapsus, in 46 B.c. But why this sudden reappear-
ance? And how were they procured? Numidia had no contacts with
India. The fact that it could produce a formidable body of ele-
phants for Caesar’s enemies surely implies that after his disuse in
war the elephant had a useful career as a beast of burden in North
Africa, and that the Berber races of Africa and Numidia had learnt
to catch and handle elephants for themselves, though the Cartha-
ginian soldiers of the third century seem always to have relied on
Indian mahouts.™ And, if this conjecture is true, the Belgians on
the Congo are not, as has been stated, the first to tame the African
elephant for commercial purposes. But the civilian career, so to
speak, of the elephant is another story, and one that does not
concern us here.

RICHARD GLOVER

Holyoke, Massachusetts

& Livy xtv, 41 f., does, indeed, say that there were elephants at Pydna, but gives a
very confused account of what they did; Plutarch, Aemilius Paulus, does not mention
them at all; and they certainly had no important or decisive part in the battle.

8 Polybius (1, 40; m1, 461) calls the Carthaginians’ mahouts at Panormus, at the
passage of the Rhone, and at the Battle of Metaurus, “Indians.” Vegetius (m1, 24)
speaks of Indos per quos regebantur elephanti as if Indians had a monopoly on elephant
management,

THE GREEK BEHIND LATIN!

ao title of this paper has reminded you of something you all
know. Every one of you has no doubt often experienced the
feeling that you can gain quite a new approach, a deeper under-
standing, if you suddenly discover behind a Roman word or sen-
tence or verse or poem or work of art its Greek background.

It will not, however, do much good to know, and to tell others,
only that there is some Greek in the background. Mr. Bloom, in
James Joyce’s Ulysses, apparently has this habit, and it is very
boring for Mrs. Bloom:

Metempsychosis: “Who is he when he’s at home?” “Metempsychosis,” he
said, frowning, “it’s Greek; from the Greek. That means transmigration of
souls.” “Oh rocks!” she said, “tell us in plain words.”

Arsenic: “‘ ... I wonder why they call it that; if I asked him, he’d say it’s
from the Greek, and leave us as wise as we were before.”

That is just the trouble. Mrs. Bloom feels that her husband’s ex-
planations leave her as wise as she was before, and so will our
students if we stop with “It’s from the Greek.” But if this is only
our first step, if we can make them suddenly understand things
they have not understood before, then they will study Greek and
love it.

Recently Reverend Father Robert T. Brown gave us some
charming samples of conversational Latin. One of his little dia-
logues ran:

Quid significat verbum schola? Schola est locus in quo discimus.

You know, of course, that, true as this may sometimes be, it is
not the whole truth. Every Latin teacher knows that schola is
plain Greek. And it does not mean a “place where one learns,” but
it means “leisure.” The whole Roman system of instruction is
Greek, and perhaps no word is better able to express the simple but
basic fact that the study of the aries liberales is not undertaken in
order to fill the mind with an additional burden, but that the

1 An address delivered at the Annual Winter Meeting of the Classical Association of
the Pacific States, Southern Section, December 6, 1941.

270

GREEK BEHIND LATIN 271

student, when he learns, has the unusual privilege of making use
of his leisure; he goes to school, to schola, to cxod7.

The boy or girl who learns grammar, arlem grammaticam in
Latin (Yes, it’s Greek, Mrs. Bloom, from the Greek), learns 7a
ypéupara, “the letters.” It should not be too difficult to give these
boys and girls a first, faint idea of the fact that the alphabet has a
great history. The Orient taught the Greeks the art of writing.
The Greeks perfected their alpha beta and handed it over to the
Romans, who passed it along to the later world.

Ta ypdupara, moreover, are not only the letters, but the whole
system of writing and reading, and, in a more restricted sense, the
art which we call grammar. What is a subject, what is a predicate?
They are translations from the Greek—philosophical terms
adapted for grammatical use. They are not really easy to compre-
hend. One needs a smattering of Aristotle’s logic: boxeipevor,
subjectum; xarnyopoipevor, praedicatum. But Aristotelian logic is a
little hard for a popular presentation, so let us touch upon only one
point of grammatical terminology where we cannot do without a
knowledge of Greek.

The grammatical case is, of course, the Latin casus. Why
casus? Why “‘fall”? Casus is the Latin translation of the Greek
mrGows: the nominative stands, the other cases are declined—
they “fall” from their original stand. The names of the genitive and
dative cases explain themselves, and though they are exact trans-
lations from the Greek yyexxy and dorixy, this fact would not be
needed to understand them. The genitive expresses the origin, the
provenance, the “where from”’; the dative expresses handing over
to someone or something. But what in the world does accusative
mean? The case of accusation? Why not the case of eating, drink-
ing, killing, loving? Well, the Roman grammarian who translated
the Greek aircarixy did not understand it. Aircarixy is the case of
airia. It indicates that which is caused by the verb, or is alleged as
the cause of the verbal action or the person responsible. The Greek
term by no means covers the whole field of the accusative, but it
makes much more sense than the dull Roman translator was able
to catch.

What is “nature”? The statement that nature is the Latin

272 PAUL FRIEDLANDER

natura does not help us much. Natura is a genuine Latin word like
figura, usura. But the Roman peasant who formed the old Latin
language had no use for such a far-reaching, theoretical concept as
nature. Natura meant to him “birth of men and cattle” or, in an
even more concrete way, “‘the vital organs of birth.”” Then Greek
philosophy entered Rome. The Greeks had thought about ¢iors a
few hundred years. I cannot deal with the development and the
results of this thinking, with the history of Greek philosophy and
natural science from Thales to the Stoics. One of the main aspects
of piois is implied in its etymology. It comes from the root $v;
it is that which originates, grows by itself, is not made by human
technique. The task of the unknown Roman who had to choose or
to coin a Latin word for Greek giovs was not easy, indeed, propier
egestatem linguae et rerum novitatem, to quote Lucretius.? He saw
that the Latin root (g)ma corresponds exactly with the Greek gv.
He then chose the old Latin matura and filled it with all the content
of Greek ¢iorts. One must indeed have at least a smattering of
Greek philosophy and its history to explain such things to boys and
girls. But such a knowledge is indispensable, at least if one wants
to read Lucretius, or Cicero, or Horace, or Seneca.

So far we have dealt only with single words. But what holds
good for words is valid for works of literature in a much higher
degree. From the day on which Andronicus, the Greek slave of
M. Livius Salinator, translated Homer’s rolling hexameter

"Avipa you tvvere, Moidoa, ro\ brporov
in his stiff Saturnian verse,
Virum mihi, Camena, insece vorsutum;
still more from the day on which Q. Ennius began his Annales with
the hexameter,
Musae quae pedibus magnum pulsatis Olympum,
the fate of Roman literature was decided. The question was not

whether the Romans would follow the Greek example; it was only
to what degree they would do so. They did it, as all of us know, in

* 1. 139,

GREEK BEHIND LATIN 273

almost every field and with such energy that the famous word of

Horace,
vos exemplaria Graeca
nocturna versate manu versate diurna*®

was not a new imperative, but only the classical formula for a
recognized habit.

Where shall I begin, where shall I stop reminding you of the
importance of the fact that behind every Roman work of literature
or art rises the venerable shape of its Greek model—not to reduce
the value of the Roman imitatio, but to enhance it? I am not going
to speak of the more primitive methods of adaptation, of which
Plautus would be the best example:

Demophilus scripsit, Maccus vortit barbare,
or
Graece haec vocatur Emporus Philemonis,
eadem Latine Mercator Macci Titi.‘

It would be interesting to expatiate upon an enterprise of such far-
reaching importance as Cicero’s foundation of classical prose
literature, “the only work,” as Seneca says, “which the Roman
mind produced worthy of the Roman Empire.’ Cicero himself tells
us what induced him to write Latin philosophy. He wanted to op-
pose the conviction “that any Romans who were learned in the
teaching of the Greeks and who felt an interest in philosophy
would rather read Greek than Roman writings, and, conversely,
that if they shrank from the sciences and the systems of the
Greeks, they would not care even for philosophy in Latin, which
cannot be understood without Greek learning.’® He wanted to
overcome this Roman contempt for Latin writings: “Why should
they dislike their native language for serious and important sub-
jects when they are quite willing to read Latin plays translated
word for word from the Greek? Why should not Latin be read by
Romans?’” Cicero could have written on philosophy in Greek, as
he wrote the memoirs of his consulship in Greek, but he preferred
to create, after Greek models, the classical prose of Roman philoso-

3 A.P. 268 f. 4 Asinaria 11; Mercator 9.
5 Academica 1, 2, 4. ® De Finibus 1, 2, 4.

274 PAUL FRIEDLANDER

phy. Creative philosophy, to be sure, had not very much to gain,
but literature and general culture were better off for such works as
the Platonizing De Re Publica, with the Somnium at the end, or
the Hortensius; i.e., the Romanized Aristotle.

As an example from Roman art I should like to speak about such
an extraordinary work of architecture and sculpture as the Ara
Pacis Augustae, consecrated in 9 B.c., in the Campus Martius. You
will remember the marble reliefs preserved in Rome and Florence,
with the procession of Roman officials, the scenes of sacrifice,
Mother Earth with her children in her arms, the Winds surround-
ing her,

fertilis frugum pecorisque Tellus

et Iovis aurae.’
It is a masterly blending of Hellnistic and classical Greek forms
with the Roman sentiment of res publica and dignitas. Not by
chance do words of Horace occur to our mind, for in Horace we

find the same blending of Greek and Roman. What can be more

Roman than:
usque ego postera
crescam laude recens, dum Capitolium
scandet cum tacita virgine pontifex?*®

What can be more Greek than these lines, from the same poem:

Sume superbiam
quaesitam meritis et mihi Delphica
lauro cinge volens, Melpomene, comam?*

And the very transition from Greece to Italy is in
princeps Aeolium carmen ad Italos

deduxisse modos.””

It is not our literary curiosity which makes us investigate the
literary sources of Horace; it is not at all a question of literary
sources. Horace himself urges us to see rising behind his poems the
venerable shadows of classical Greek poetry:

Pindarum quisquis studet aemulari”

7 Horace, Carmen Saeculare 29, 32. 8 Carm. m1, 30, 7-9.
® Carm. m1, 30, 14-16. 10 Carm. i, 30, 13 f. 1 Carm. tv, 2, 1.

GREEK BEHIND LATIN 275

and
Ceaeque et Alcaei minaces
Stesichorive graves Camenae;
nec si quid olim lusit Anacreon™
and

Aeoliis fidibus querentem
Sappho puellis de popularibus.”

This is Greek verse (and probably Greek music), Greek mythology,
Greek philosophy, Greek names and what not—and yet it is
Italian:
longe sonantem natus ad Aufidum™“
and Roman:
stet Capitolium
fulgens triumphatisque possit
Roma ferox dare iura Medis."®

And how very Roman—comparable with the iron step of the
Roman legion—sounds,

si fractus illabatur orbis,
impavidum ferient ruinae,"*

though even the most Roman things are imbued with the music of
Greek verse. It is Greco-Roman poetry, the only great poetry
produced by the Latin race.

Let me add an example from Lucretius’ didactic epos. It is
Hellenistic philosophy; i.e., late, weary, and prosaic philosophy—
Greek philosophy of course:

primum Graius homo mortales tendere contra
est oculos ausus primusque obsistere contra.!”

But the Greek philosopher becomes, in the heroic verses of his
Roman follower, a conqueror: he breaks the gates of nature, he
forces his way through the flaming walls of the universe like a
Roman imperator. In order to express this very Roman view
Lucretius had to transpose Epicurus, Hellenistic prose, a very
prosaic prose, into the epic verse of Ennius, full of the sound of
Roman armor:

2 Carm. rv, 9, 7-10. 8 Carm. 11, 13, 24 f. 4 Carm. Iv, 9, 2.
% Carm. m1, 3, 42-44. % Carm. m1, 3, 7 f. 17 Lucretius 1, 66 f.

276 PAUL FRIEDLANDER

Ennius ut noster cecinit."*

But the transposition into such an entirely different key would not
have succeeded, would not even have been attempted, if Lucretius
had not learned from the early Greek philosopher-poets that
philosophy can be poetry:

quorum Acragantinus cum primis Empedocles est.

carmina quin etiam divini pectoris eius
vociferantur et exponunt praeclara reperta,
ut vix humana videatur stirpe creatus.!®

This process of blending the prose of Epicurus with the philo-
sophic poetry of Empedocles and the language and verse of Ennius’
Annales may seem complicated, perhaps more so than it is. But a
few days ago I experienced how easily freshmen Latin students
may be given a glimpse of the Greek behind the language of
Lucretius. Aeneadum genetrix:?® I showed them that one can
transpose it almost letter by letter into Greek, Aived dwv yevérespa.
There is no doubt that the poet wanted my freshmen to hear the
Greek behind—no, within—the Latin. Otherwise he would not
have supplied Aeneas with the Greek patronymic ending—ééns.
A consequence is that the Greek yevéretpa must be heard in the
Latin genetrix, though, on the other hand, Venus genetrix is a very
Roman, or at least Romanized, goddess, the tutelary goddess of
Julius Caesar. But this is not all the Greek which the first verse
contains; hominum divomque volupias brings to mind Homer’s
mwarnp avdpdav re Oedv re, so that the ritualistic invocation of the
very beginning is almost as much Greek as it is Latin.

Let me finish with a very few remarks on Vergil. When I first
read Vergil at the German gymnasium we were above all shown the
lack of originality; the Aeneid was not much more than a weak
reflection of Homer. I hope very few people today look at Roman
literature through such distorting glasses. Should we not be able to
read Vergil with the enthusiasm he deserves, and to see at the same
time what he himself invites us to see, the Greek behind his Latin
words? No doubt he wanted to be first the Theocritus, then the
Hesiod, and finally the Homer of his Roman nation.

Let me remind you of only a very few well-known facts concern-

18 Jd., 1, 117. Jd., 1, 716, 731-733. % Aen. 1, 6f.

GREEK BEHIND LATIN 277

ing the Aeneid. The first six books are the Roman Odyssey, the
wandering of the hero after the destruction of Troy—multum ille et
terris iactatus et alto; the last six books are the Roman Jliad—
multa quoque et bello passus. The two Homeric poems contribute
equally to the national epic of Rome. The very proem betrays this
blending. Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris. . . . The
man (virum) and the relative clause—you will allow me for a
moment to be technical, even pedantic—this is the Odyssey—
avipa... és... mdAadyxOn. At the same time arma has the warlike
sound of the first word in the Jliad, uj, and arma virumque cano
shows exactly the same three caesurae as the first half-verse of the
Iliad, unvw Gevde 064. Without doubt Vergil fused in the flame of
his art the proems of the two Homeric poems.

I could go on showing you the same method throughout the
whole of Vergil’s proem. But you must recognize at the same time
that very Vergilian and very Roman trend which does not stem
from Homer: primus—no one before him in the lapse of time; Fato
profugus, and dum conderet urbem—the fateful significance for the
entire history of Rome:

genus unde Latinum
Albanique patres atque altae moenia Romae.”

Vergil is no imitator out of poverty. He is the grand seigneur of
Roman poetry who lavishly uses what the great past has given
him. Your personal taste may prefer Lucretius or Horace or Ovid,
but Vergil is the central poet of ancient Rome, as Dante is of
modern Italy. Dante professes in the first canto of his Commedia
what he owes Vergil:

O degli altri poeti onore e lume

Tu sei lo mio maestro e il mio autore.™
Vergil professes in his very first lines—by implication, but nonthe-
less clearly—that for him Homer is the revered master that he
himself was for Dante. We shall never read Vergil as he himself
wants us to read him if we are not able to see, to hear, to feel the
Greek behind the Latin.

PAUL FRIEDLANDER
University of California at Los Angeles

1 Canto 1, 82-85.

ATHLETIC HONORS IN THE FIFTH CENTURY

HE discussion over the identity of the bronze statue recovered
in 1926 from a shipwrecked galley off the coast of Artemisium
has revived an old problem connected with the size of the victor
statues and with the honors awarded to a victorious athlete in the
fifth century. This sculptured masterpiece of the Transitional Pe-
riod (dating from ca. 460-450 B.c.), because of its height (2.10 m.)
and its divine appearance was at once assumed to represent one of
the gods.'! This assumption was denied by Jiithner, who in a recent
study has tried to prove that the statue did not represent a god,
but an athlete who was victorious in the pentathlon.” In an effort
to prove his thesis Jiithner has maintained that other athletic
statues were over life-size, and that a victorious athlete was con-
sidered almost equal to the gods and awarded a semi-divine status.
The honors awarded to victorious athletes in the fifth century
B.C. are in the main well known.’ Such athletes were allowed first
and foremost to have their statues erected at the site where the
victory was won and quite often at a central place in their home
towns. The appearance of these statues is well known, but their
size, especially in the fifth century, is not definitely established.
Jiithner believes that such statues could be over life-size, and he
points to the “Doryphorus” in Munich as proof of his belief.‘
Whether we claim that the “Doryphorus” was the statue of a
victor or that of an athlete, the fact still remains that it is an ath-
letic statue and that its height is 2.12 m., i.e., over life-size and
slightly taller than the bronze statue from Artemisium.

The “Doryphorus” of Munich, however, is not an original but a
Roman copy; a copy in stone of a bronze statue. Before we admit it
as evidence we have first to prove that it is an exact replica of the
original from the hand of Polyclitus. It is, of course, established

1 Chr. Karouzos, Deltion xm (1930-31), 41-104, JHS xxrx (1929), 141.

2 J. Jithner, “Die Grossbronze vom Artemision,” Ath. Mitt. txt (1937), 136-148.

* Cf. especially E. N. Gardiner, Greek Athletic Sports and Festivals (London, 1910),

74-79.
* Jiithner, op. cit., 147 and n. 1.

278

ATHLETIC HONORS 279

that Polyclitus developed well-defined proportions, which he used
in the making of all his statues. In the Museum of Naples there is
another copy of his “Doryphorus” and that is only 1.97 m.in
height. The copy of his “Diadumenus” from Delos is 1.86 m. in
height. The originals of these statues apparently were of the same
height, since they were made in accordance with the same Polycli-
tian rules of proportion. Which of the three copies mentioned above
represents the actual dimensions used by Polyclitus in the original
“Doryphorus”? This question cannot be answered, and conse-
quently Jiithner’s argument based on the “Doryphorus” of Munich
is of no actual merit.

Additional evidence for the height of the victor statues has been
collected by Hyde in his excellent monograph on The Olympic Vic-
tor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art.’ On the basis of that evi-
dence Hyde has concluded that over-life-sized statues, although
the exception to the rule, were occasionally produced. The statue
from Artemisium could be conceived as an example of such an ex-
ception. The evidence, however, which was brought to support this
statement is not convincing. It consists of the assumed height of
two statues and of a passage from the writings of Aristotle. The
statues used have not survived, but their height has been calcu-
lated from the traces of footprints still to be seen on the bases on
which they once stood and which were found at Olympia. The
first, the statue of the Rhodian boxer Eucles by the Argive Nau-
cydes, is considered over life-size because the footprints on the
base “are about 33 cm. long.’ Yet in Dittenberger’s description
of the base we read: Auf der Oberfliche die 0.06 tiefen, 0.225-0.24
langen Einlassungen fiir die Fiisse einer danach etwa lebensgrossen
Bronzestatue.’ It is apparent that there is some uncertainty, at
least as to the size of the footprints, which will certainly invalidate
this example. The second statue, that of the Athenian pancratiast
allias, is equally doubtful. The calculation of its dimensions, as-

5 Washington, Carnegie Institution (1921), 32-37.

6 Jbid., 45. Eucles won in Ol. 90-93 (=420-408 s.c.); H. Foerster, Die Sieger in den
Olym pischen S pielen (1891), No. 297.

7 W. Dittenberger—K. Purgold, Olympia, v, Die Inschriften von Olympia (Berlin,
1896), 275, Inscr. No. 159.

280 GEORGE E. MYLONAS

sumed to be “larger than life-size,” depends again on the assumed
measurements of footprints only the front part of which have sur-
vived.® Even if the assumed measurements were correct, we have
to remember how easily such traces, on the flat surface of a piece
of marble, can be changed by natural or artificial causes in the
course of time; and again, that the breaking of a bronze statue
from its base may cause distortions and even enlargement of the
hollow over which that statue was anchored. At best the evidence
obtained from footprints left on bases is very doubtful and cer-
tainly very scarce.

Equally scarce and doubtful is the evidence to be obtained from
our literary sources. Hyde has mentioned the passage of Pausanias
in which the statue of the pancratiast Polydamas of Scotusa is
described.® In that passage, however, nothing is stated about the
size of the statue, and to maintain that the statue was “larger than
life-size” just because it stood on a high base and because it repre-
sented “the tallest of men,” is not justified. Perhaps of greater
importance is the evidence which Hyde has derived from the pre-
served fragment of Aristotle’s work on the Olympic victors. ‘(We
know the actual size,” he maintains,’ “of at least two of these
Olympic statues.” The scholiast of Pindar, Ol. vm, Argum., on the
basis of a fragment from Aristotle’s lost work on the Olympic vic-
tors" and one from the little-known writer Apollas Ponticus, says
that the statue of the Rhodian boxer Diagoras was 4 cubits and 5
fingers tall, i.e., about 6 feet 4.5 inches, somewhat over life-size.
From the same scholiast we learn that the statue of the son of
Diagoras, the pancratiast Damagetus, ‘‘was 4 cubits high, or less
than that of the father by 5 fingers, and consequently just under 6
feet.”’ If the reference to Aristotle is correct, then here we have the
literary evidence which proves the existence of victor statues
greater than life-size. The reference to Aristotle’s lost work was
published along with other scholia by C. Miiller,” and that publi-

8 Tbid., 250, Inscr. 146. Cf. Pausanias v, 9, 3.

® Op. cit., 45; Pausanias vr, 5, 1.

10 Hyde, op. cit., 45.

1 The lost work of Aristotle is mentioned by Diogenes Laertius v, 26.

12 Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum (Paris, 1841-51), p. 183, fragm. 264 and p.
307, fragm. 7.

ATHLETIC HONORS 281

cation Hyde has used as his source. Unfortunately Miiller’s state-
ment is not entirely correct.

It is well known that the MSS of Pindar are divided into two
families (MS A, the Ambrosianus c222, representing the first, and
MS B, the Vaticanus Graecus 1332, the second), going back to the
same archetype, perhaps dating from the second century B.c., to
which the extant scholia are referred. According to Drachman, in
O. 11-x1t duo diversa scholiorum genera extant, unum solo codice A
eiusque apographo Redigerano servatum, quod ob id ipsum Ambrosi-
anum vocatur, alterum ceterorum omnium qui noti sunt codicum com-
mune, quod ab antiquissimo codice B Vaticanum appellavit Momm-
sen. The argument in MS A reads as follows:

“rept tov Avaydpov elre pév xal ’ApiororéAns.... xal ’AmddXas
paprupovow bri 5’ rnxa@v xal €' daxridwv jr. eoxe 5é al Aayaynrov
vidvy mpecBiratov tav raldwy terparnxuy 7d péyeOos, Tov marpds
€\arrova e' daxridwr.”

The argument in MS B (and in the other MSS C D E Q which
follow it) reads:

“Atayépa ‘Podiw rixrp: wept 5¢ robrov tov Araydpouv iordpynra
TovavTa. kata yap THv 'Od\vpriav éornxer 6 Avaydpas pera THv Avodvdpov
elxdva, mnx@v tecodpwv daxridwv wérte, Ti deivay dvareivwy xeipa,
tiv b& dpiorepay els éavrdv émixXivwr* pera 5é Tovrov torara kal 6
Aapdyeros 6 mpecBiratos Trav Taidwy abrov, bs fv Kal dudvupos To
TanrT@ wayKpatiov mpoPeBAnpévos, Kal abrdés TnxXav Tecodpuw \aTTwr
5 row warpds daxridwy 5'.”

Miiller has combined the two versions of the argument and thus
developed the following statement:

“Avayopa “Podiw mwixry.... wept 5& robrov rov Avaydpou dire yey
kal ’Apuororédns (sc. év ’'OAvpriovixais) cal ’Awdddas paprupovor Se
ToaiTa. Kata yap Thy 'OdNvpTiav éornxer 6 Acaydpas pera THY Avodvdpou
elxéva, mnx@v tecodpuv Saxridwy wévte, tiv detivay dvarelvwr xeipa,
Thy b& dpiorepay els éavrdv émixAlywr* pera 5é¢ Tovrov torara xal 6

1% Drachman, Scholia Vetera in Pindari Carmina (Lipsiae, 1903), Praefatio x. Cf.
T. Mommsen edit. of Pindar, Berlin, 1864. For the date of the archetype cf. Wilamo-
witz’ Preface to his edition of Euripides’ Heracles (1st ed., vol. 1, p. 185.)

282 GEORGE E. MYLONAS

Aapéyeros 6 mpeoBiraros trav Traltiwy abrov, bs Fv Kal ducvupos Te
Tarr, TayKpativ rpoBeBAnpévos, kal abrds mnxav tecodpwv EddrTwv
5¢ rov rarpds daxridwy wévre.”’

This statement was used by Hyde as evidence.“ But from the
comparison of the two versions of the argument it becomes appar-
ent that Miiller has mixed the pertinent passages arbitrarily and
has attributed to Aristotle and to Apollas a statement which they
did not make. For in MS A, these ancient authors speak of the
height of Diagoras and of his son and not of the height of their
statues. In MS B, where the heights of the statues are given,
Aristotle and Apollas are not mentioned but instead we have
lorépnrat rovaira. We may go further and maintain that of the two
versions that included in MS A is the more accurate, and that the
scribe of the argument of MS B confused the evidence he was copy-
ing, mixed his sources, and applied to the statues the reputed
height of the men themselves. For to believe that the sculptors of
the fifth century would have given to their statues the exact
height of the athletes they wished to represent will be to claim the
impossible. That the scribe of the argument of MS B was not over-
careful is indicated by the measurement given for Damagetus, as
being shorter than his father by four, instead of by five fingers.
Again, in the scholium on verse 28a in MS B (and in MSS C D EQ)
and as an explanation for reAdpuv &vipa we find ob rapa 7d rapa-
Tuyxavov éveyxwulace tov Gvipa Araydpay, ad\dA\a ouphdvws ois
mporépas ols éEnynodpeba repli robrov, Sri trecodpwv mnxav Kal wévTe
daxrbAwv 6 Araydpas. Since no other mention of the height
of Diagoras is contained in the scholia on the previous verses of the
ode, it is apparent that the cvpgdvws trois rporépos ols éénynodpcba
refers to the statement in the argument, and proves that the
measurements given there referred to the height of the men and
not to that of their statues. Miiller’s handling of the two versions
of the argument will illustrate very aptly the way in which the old
scribe could have mixed and confused his sources. It is possible
now to conclude that Hyde’s assertion that Aristotle and Apollas
give us the height of two victor statues is not correct, because it is
based on Miiller’s text, which is proved incorrect.

4 Op. cit., 45, note 7.

ATHLETIC HONORS 283

The existing evidence, literary and archaeological, does not indi-
cate, let alone prove, the existence of victor statues of over life-
size. On the contrary it seems to prove that such statues were at
the most of life-size. For the only original statue of a victor from
the early fifth century is the “Charioteer of Delphi,” and that is
only 1.80 m. in height.” And if we place any faith in the traces of
footprints left on bases of statues, we may add that practically all
of them indicate statues of life-size or smaller.’* It becomes appar-
ent, therefore, from the above that as far as we know, victor statues
were life-size or smaller.

The other honors bestowed on a victorious athlete have been
fully discussed, especially by Gardiner.!’ The brilliant homecom-
ing, the hymn of victory,'* the special privileges in public gather-
ings (in Athens the front seat at the theater; in Sparta the right
to fight next to the king), the public grants (in Athens dating at
least from the time of Solon’®), were among the honors awarded the
victorious athlete. It is true that in later years more striking
honors were granted, and these seem to have been initiated in
Southern Italy;”° but in the fifth century there is no evidence
proving that beyond the right to enjoy the privileges mentioned
above and to receive certain grants, any divine status and adora-
tion were bestowed on a victorious athlete. And yet we know of
five great athletes of the fifth century who were given divine
honors, and these athletes and the magnificent celebrations of
later ages” are constantly brought forth and used as a proof for the
assumption that the victors were granted a divine status. Hyde,

4 Perhaps we should note Lucian’s statement, “even at the Olympic games the vic-
tors are not allowed to set up statues greater than life-size” (Pro. Imag., 11, translation
A. M. Harmon, “Loeb Classical Library”), although the late date of Lucian will not
permit the use of the statement for a discussion of statues of the fifth century.

6 Cf. Hyde, op. cit., 46, where numerous statues are mentioned the height of which is
assumed to be under life-size or normal from the footprints left on their bases.

\T Op. cit., 74-79.

18 These were composed by the best lyric poets, such as Pindar, Bacchylides, etc.

19 Public meals and even money grants—500 drachmae for a victory at Olympia, 100
drachmae for one at the Isthmia; cf. Hyde, op. cit., 32 for ancient references.

#° Cf. Diodorus xim, 82 for Exaenetus of Agrigentum.

* Such as the tearing down of the wall of a city. Cf. Plutarch, Quaest. Conviv. u, 5, 2,
the triumphal rides in chariots; Diodorus xm, 82; Suetonius, Nero 25; Vitruvius, De
Architectura 1x, 1.

284 GEORGE E. MYLONAS

for example, states: “It was in the West that we first hear of victors
worshipped as heroes or gods, though the custom took root in
Greece.’”” And Jiithner, more recently, has cited the names of
these athletes in defense of his argument.” Perhaps it will be of
some interest to repeat the stories of these five athletes as pre-
served in the writings of Pausanias, because we believe that in so
doing we shall easily dispel the notions which have grown up
around the fact that they were worshiped in antiquity.

Our first story is that of Oebotas of Dyme, who won a victory
in the foot-race at Olympia in the sixth Olympiad. According to
Pausanias, “‘to this day Achaeans who mean to compete at Olym-

pia are wont to offer sacrifice to Oebotas as to a hero, and, if they
are victorious, to place a wreath on his statue at Olympia.’ This
statement seems to indicate the existence of a victor worship at
Dyme. However, there is more to the story. Oebotas was the first
Achaean to win a victory at Olympia, and yet he was not honored
by his compatriots on his return from the contest. ‘“Therefore he
prayed that no Achaean should win an Olympic victory any more,
and there must have been one of the gods who took care that the
curse of Oebotas should be fulfilled.” Only after learning from the
Delphic oracle the reason for the failure of their athletes at Olym-
pia did the Achaeans, in accordance with the oracle’s order, erect
a statue at Olympia, and this was at a much later date, in the eight-
ieth Olympiad.* It becomes apparent from the story that the
honors bestowed on the statue of Oebotas by prospective com-
petitors were not prompted by a desire to honor him as a victorious
athlete, but by the fear that his curse, which rested upon all
Achaean athletes, might operate against them and by the hope
that this curse would be lifted by means of sacrifices and honors.
The hero of our second story is Cleomedes of Astypalaea, who

® Op. cit., 35. He adds also: “It was but natural to account for the great strength of
famous athletes by assigning to them divine origin and by worshipping them after
death.”

% Op. cit., 147.

™% Pausanias vil, 17, 13 f. All the translations of Pausanias’ passages are taken from
Frazer’s edition of the author.

% H, W. Parker, A History of the Delphic Oracle (Oxford, 1939), 362; Foerster, op. cit.,
No. 6.

ATHLETIC HONORS 285

also was honored with sacrifices by his compatriots. His story
will give us the reason for this extraordinary case. Cleomedes, a
boxer, had the ill fortune to kill his opponent, and for this he was
deprived of his prize and was accused of foul play. This proved
too much for him and he went mad with grief. On his return to
Astypalaea he caused the roof of a school room to cave in on the
children collected there. To avoid the incensed citizens he stepped
into a chest which stood in a corner of the sanctuary of Athena and
drew down the lid. When his pursuers broke open the chest, they
found that Cleomedes had disappeared. In answer to their in-
quiries, the Delphic oracle commanded them to honor Cleomedes
“with sacrifices as no longer mortal.”*” Perhaps Pythia took his
disappearance “to be a proof of translation to the divine’’;** hence
the oracle. Whatever the reason for Pythia’s order, the fact still re-
mains that Cleomedes was not honored because he was a victorious
athlete, for as a matter of fact, he was not, but because of his
strange disappearance and the order of the oracle.

The third athlete who received divine honors was the boxer
Euthymus of Epizephyrian Lokri, who won three times at
Olympia, his first victory coming in the seventy-fourth Olympiad.”
It is said that he was worshiped as a hero in his lifetime. But
again, he was worshiped not because of his victory, but because
the Delphic oracle instructed his compatriots to honor him with
sacrifices. And this was done not because he was a victorious
athlete, but because his two statues—one at Olympia and the other
at Lokri—were struck by lightning on the same day. This was a
sign of favor from Zeus himself, which justified such an honor.
Gardiner took this sign as “a righteous retribution for such im-
piety’*°—because he allowed himself to be worshiped during his
lifetime. I doubt that this explanation is correct. For if Zeus
wanted to punish Euthymus for his impiety, he would have
struck him and not his statues, as he had done to Salmoneus.™
When we recall the great respect in which the ancient Greeks held
the body of the person struck by a lightning bolt and the divine

8 Pausanias VI, 9, 6-9. 27 Parker, op. cit., 322 f. % Td., 363.

* Pausanias v1, 6, 10; Pliny, Nat. Hist. vir, 152; Foerster, op. cit., No. 185.
© Op. cit., 77. * Apollodorus 1, 9, 7.

286 GEORGE E. MYLONAS

honors accorded it,®* we can only conclude that the extraordinary
event could be taken to express a signal approval, as a result of
which, after the sanction of the oracle at Delphi, divine honors
were awarded Euthymus. We have also to remember that Euthy-
mus had delivered the people of Temesa from the blight of the
shady ghost called by Pausanias “Hero,” and that consequently
he had won their gratitude for that service also. At any rate, the
story of this athlete, as told by Pausanias and Pliny, proves defi-
nitely that he was honored not because of his victories at Olympia
but because of the favor bestowed on him by Zeus.

The story of our next athlete, Theagenes the Thasian, who had

won fourteen hundred crowns in athletic competitions, is told by
Pausanias :**
When he [Theagenes] departed this world, one of the men who had been at
enmity with him in his life came every night to the statue of Theagenes and
whipped the bronze figure as if he were maltreating Theagenes himself. The
statue checked his insolence by falling on him; but the sons of the deceased
prosecuted the statue for murder. The Thasians sank the statue in the sea. . . .
But in the course of time, their land yielding them no fruits, the Thasians sent
envoys to Delphi, and the God told them to bring back the exiles. The exiles
were accordingly brought back, but their restoration brought no cessation of
the dearth.

They consulted the oracle again, and the order this time was “‘you
have forgotten your great Theagenes.” The statue was recovered
from the sea by fishermen and was set up in its old place. The
wrath of the gods was thus appeased and the Thasian land again
began to yield fruits. And so the Thasians “‘are wont to sacrifice to
him as a God.” It is apparent from the story that Theagenes was
honored not because he was a victorious athlete but because he
was wronged by his countrymen, who, by their behavior had in-
curred the displeasure of the gods to such an extent that they
could only be appeased if extraordinary honors were awarded him.

® Cf. Artemidorus, Oneirokr, 2-9: “(Such a] man, even if poor, became suddenly fa-
mous. If a slave, fine clothing was put upon him as though he were freed, and men ap-
proached him as one honored by Zeus. Nay more, every man struck by lightning was
treated as a god.” See also Cook, Zeus m (Cambridge, 1925), 22-29, where the subject is
fully discussed. * Pausanias vi, 6, 10.

* Pausanias vi, 4-9; Parker, op. cit., 365 f.; Foerster, op. cit., No. 191-196.

ATHLETIC HONORS 287

Our last athlete is Hipposthenes of Sparta, who won six victories
in wrestling at Olympia during the second half of the seventh
century B.c. (between 632-608). Unfortunately, we do not know
very much about this great athlete, who can find his equal only
in the great Milo of Croton. Pausanias, however, has noted that
a temple was erected to him and that honors were paid to him as to
Poseidon. The reason for this extraordinary treatment is not
known, but the explanation of Pausanias that this was done “in
obedience to an oracle’”® seems to indicate that Hipposthenes was
worshiped not because he was a victorious athlete but for some
special reason unknown to us, and that this worship was not
voluntary but was imposed by a divine command. We may here
once more point out that the honors paid to all these athletes were
directly ordered by the Delphic oracle for reasons that had no
connection with their victories.

We should mention, perhaps, another athlete, Philippus of
Croton, in whose honor the people of Egesta erected a heroon, and
who was worshiped after his death. Our evidence, however, proves
definitely that he was so honored not because of his victory at
Olympia but because of his exceptional beauty.*

The repetition of the stories of the athletes known to have re-
ceived divine honors has demonstrated, we believe, that these
athletes were so honored not because of their victories but either
as retribution for wrongs sustained, or because of especial divine
favor shown to them which had nothing to do with their victories.
It has been shown also that most of them were so honored long
after their victories, and it seems that these athletes were con-
sidered almost equal to gods only in much later times.*” Authors
have often quoted Dionysius’ statement: moddol xai lodben
évouicOnaoay, ot 5 xal ds Beol tiwavrar cal rav wadar,’** but they

* Pausanias m1, 15, 7; Foerster No. 60.

% Foerster, op. cit., No. 138. Herodotus v, 47: “For the beauty of his person he re-
ceived honors from the Egestans accorded to none else” (translation A. D. Godley,
“Loeb Classical Library.”

87 Some time ago Gardiner pointed out the late date of the “canonization” of these
athletes. (In B.S.A. xx (1916-19), 96f.)

%8 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ars. Rhet. v1, 7 (280); repeated by Lucian, Anachar-
sis 10.

288 GEORGE E. MYLONAS

forget that Dionysius and Lucian lived in a much later age and
that their statements, apparently rhetorical, perhaps referred to
the athletes discussed above, whose honors were not awarded as a
result of their victory. In this connection we may recall another
passage of Lucian from his proceedings of the assembly on Olympus
convened for the purpose of purging the “‘celestial roster” of those
who were base-born and fraudulently registered:

At present, oracles are delivered by every stone and every altar that is
drenched with oil and has garlands and can provide itself with a charlatan—
of whom there are plenty. Already the statue of Polydamas the athlete heals
those who have fevers in Olympia, and the statue of Theagenes does likewise
in Thasos. .. .*°

The repeated use of the #5 certainly seems to indicate the late
date of these practices. If we turn from these late statements to the
few contemporary remarks we shall be on surer grounds.

One of the bitterest critics of the honors bestowed on athletes
of the early fifth century was the philosopher Xenophanes of
Colophon, who was born in 576 and died 480 B.c. Provoked by
the honors paid to athletes and by the indifference shown to
philosophers, Xenophanes went to the other extreme and attacked
as “useless and unprofitable the whole idea of athleticism.” In the
course of his tirade he enumerated the honors piled on those who
had won a victory at Olympia. Such a victor “would be more
illustrious to look upon, in the eyes of his fellow-citizens, and he
would win a conspicuous front seat at the contests and would have
bread from the public store, given by the city, and a present to
be an heirloom forever.”” But he has not a single word about
divine honors and adoration, which he would naturally have men-
tioned.

Years later Euripides in his Autolycus repeated in a general way
the same feelings and remarks. “In the hey-day of their prime,”
he wrote, “they [the Olympic victors] come and go, the glorious,
the darlings of the city; but when bitter old age falls upon them,
they disappear, worn-out garments that have lost their nap.’’°
Again we find no mention of a divine status for a victorious

* Deor. Concilium 12, “Loeb Classical Library,” translation by A. M. Harmon.

“ The statements of Xenophanes and Euripides are preserved in Athenaeus, Dei pno-
soph. X, 413 c, translation of C. B. Gulick in “Loeb Classical Library.”

ATHLETIC HONORS 289

athlete and certainly an athlete with a divine status would not
have been put aside as a “worn-out garment” in his old age.

The author of the fourth oration bearing the name of Andocides
takes the Athenians to task for having ostracized the athlete
Callias, who apparently was not only an Olympic victor but also a
mepwodovixns, in spite of the fact that his victories had brought so
much glory to the city.“ Certainly an athlete who was awarded a
divine status, as is assumed to have been the case by some, would
not have been treated in this ignoble fashion by his fellow-citizens.

Plato called the life of an Olympic victor blessed, but at the
same time he stated that it was possible for the guardians of a
commonwealth to make their own lives even more blessed. And
the honors which would make that life even more blessed were
enumerated as the victory, the maintenance at the public cost, the
crown, the rewards, such as the front seat in public assemblies, and
the honorable burial. Certainly if adoration were awarded to an
Olympic victor, or a divine status, Plato would have included those
honors also in his enumeration of the privileges which made a
victor’s life blessed and which would have made the life of the
guardians even more blessed.*? The few extant pertinent passages
in authors who flourished during our period or a little later, defi-
nitely indicate that neither divine honors nor a divine status were
awarded to the victorious athlete.

Our survey of the evidence available, archaeological and
literary, has demonstrated, we believe, that in the fifth century
victorious athletes were honored with statues, with victory songs,
with certain privileges and public grants, but not with divine
adoration and homage due to the gods. The statues of the victori-
ous athletes were of life-size and their honors of such nature that
they cannot be conceived as raising the recipient to a divine status.
The few athletes, five out of a total of eight hundred, who were
awarded divine adoration have been proved to have received that
honor for reasons which had little to do with their victories.

GEORGE E. MYLoNnas

Washington University

St. Louis, Missouri

“ Pseudo-Andocides, C. Alcibiad. 1v, 32. This Callias is sometimes assumed to be the
same Callias we have mentioned above (cf. CIA 1, 419). @ De Rep. v, 465p, E.

NOTES

[All contributions in the form of notes for this department should be sent direct to
John L. Heller, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn.]

AN EARLY EX LIBRIS

Scholars concerned with the text tradition of a classical author
often find the byways of their subject quite as fascinating and re-
vealing as the main highway. Whimsicalities of early editions,
while they may deserve no place in a modern critical revision, do
have a charm which even a coldly scientific philologist will not
deny.

An edition of Valerius Maximus which has recently come into
my possession proves of interest on two matters beyond the actual
text. It was published by Iohannes Gryphius at Venice in 1575 and
carries the nine books of Valerius in the revision of Sebastianus
Corradus, together with the usual Vita, the so-called tenth book,
De Praenominibus of Gaius Probus, and the Index. The book lives
for us through an earlier owner, a resident of Foligno, who has
signed his name in brown ink on the title page ;! there is also a nota-
tion at the top of the first end-paper after the text giving the place
of purchase and an indication of the price,? and he has inscribed
on the verso of the next end-paper an early and charming specimen
of a written ex libris:

Libro, s’a sorte m’uscissi di mano,
Et ti perdesse io me ne dolerei,
Perche comprato t’ho per caso strano
Con li denar’ delle fatighe miei,

Se capitassi alla persona in mano,

Et non sapesse, 6 libro, de chi sei,

Di sol’ che legga questo verso bene,
“Libro son de Niccolo Criscimbene.”’

The script is hardly much later than the date of publication and
contains abbreviations familiar in manuscripts and early printing.

1 “Nicolai Criscimbenis Fulgin . . . ” the page has lost a corner here; it has been care-
fully mended, but the last letters of the word are missing.

2 “Comprato in fiera di Foligno.” The figure 18 follows, together with a symbol
which, in the opinion of Dr. Florence Edler de Roover, is probably the abbreviation for
lire.

290

NOTES 291

This ex libris, composed in verse and addressed to the book it-
self,* is in the tradition of the fly-leaf poetry so dear to the heart
of the American schoolboy. In this connection I recall the macaronic
printed on the cover of a pocket dictionary which I owned in my
childhood, a dictionary published by a business firm for advertising
purposes:

Si quisquis furetur
This little libellum,
Per Bacchum! per Iovem!
I'll kill him, I’ll fell him;
In ventrem illius
I’ll stick my scalpellum
And teach him to steal
My little libellum.‘

Nicolaus is not so bloodthirsty, but the spirit of his verse and his
concern for the safety of his book are the same. We can probably
translate his injunction into modern idiom as follows without being
accused of irreverence:

Little book, if by chance you escape from my hand
And I weep to have lost you somehow,

Just because I did buy you (I still don’t know why)
With dough earned at sweat of my brow,

Pray turn to the rascal who keeps you confined
And says he knows not whence you came,

And tell him to ponder this verse in his heart,
“I belong to Nick Criscimbene.”®

The other item of interest is found printed immediately after the
Index. It takes the form of twelve elegiac couplets addressed by
one T. Sempronius Hieronymus Castellioneus to the younger gen-
eration of his day and calculated to increase the sales of editions of
Valerius. These verses had been printed earlier, in the edition pub-

* Personification of a book is sometimes found in the form me addidit suis. In a 1645
Machiavelli in my possession two successive owners have used this designation of owner-
ship.

‘ For fly-leaf poetry, cf. Ted Robinson’s column in The Cleveland Plain Dealer for
April 18, 1935. He includes this macaronic.

5 A later owner, one Vincentius Avitus, has had the temerity to cross out the name of
Nicolaus on the title page and write his own beneath, but he left the ex libris undis-
turbed.

292 THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL

lished at Venice by Vincentius Valgrisius in 1545, for example, and
it is possible that their author is the Jerome of Castiglione who
published in 1491 a work on the Holy Land.*° In any case, he finds
himself, as many a professor today, utterly discouraged by the
laziness of young men who prefer to fritter away their time in
trifles rather than engage in serious study. The Muses languish and
Apollo hungers while the blandishments of the world corrupt and
destroy. But he has a remedy, infallible and therefore surpassing
those of modern pedagogues! A young man in so sad a state need
only read Valerius, need only ponder the deeds of the mighty
Roman worthies therein contained—Decius, Marius, Cicero, Fa-
bricius, Cato, and all the rest; if he will follow them, the result is
guaranteed: he becomes a model young man and his fame survives
as has theirs.

And so we have Valerius the moralist! But for all their tone of
exhortation the verses remain delightful, and they will be timeless
as long as the older generation of any land and period accuses the
younger of decadence:’

En quo perventum est? passim nunc lenta iuventus
torpet, lethargo corripiturque gravi.

in levibus nugis praeciosum perdere tempus
mavult, quam studiis invigilare bonis.

quis modus? humanam quae nunc dementia prolem
afficit? in barathrum quis furor inde trahit?

sic frigent musae, Phebus sic esurit, omnis
ars perit: heu virtus sic iacet in tenebris.

omnigenum nutrix vitiorum blanda voluptas,
mentibus ah quantum sola nocet miseris.

surge age, pelle moras, nunc expergiscere tandem:
hinc suadet tempus, te monet hinc ratio.

dum datur, ipse tibi pulchrum post funera nomen
acquiras, quod non pallida mors maculet.

tot pia gesta virum memori sub mente revolvas:
iugiter ista tuis subiicias oculis.

Augustos, Decios, Marios, Fabios, Cicerones,

® Cf. Graesse, J. G. T., Trésor des Livres Rares et Précieux: Dresden (1869), Tom.
vir, 160.

? The title is “Ad Iuvenes T. Sempronius Hieronymus Castellioneus in Commenda-
tionem Valerii Maximi.” I have included in the following text some slight variations as
offered in the edition of 1545.

NOTES 293

Pompilios, Scauros, Fabricios, Curios,
Tarquinios, Futios, Plancos, magnosque Catones,
i celer, et reliquos Romulidas sequere.
horum bella, animos, mores, summosque triumphos,
Nomina, virtutes, stemmata, vel titulos,
aureus iste liber complectitur omnia carptim,
maxima quae praestat MAXIMUS ecce tibi.

Dorotuy M. SCHULLIAN
Albion College
Albion, Michigan

SOME AFRICAN VARIANTS OF “BUCCA, BUCCA”

In my recent article ‘A Roman Game and Its Survival on Four
Continents” (Classical Philology xxxvu [1943], 134-137) I gave
descriptions and texts of the game as played in North and South
America, Europe, and Asia. It was not until something like a
month after the publication of that paper that I was reminded of
some Afrikaans texts in my files. A letter from Lt. Murray Fowler,
USNR, on duty with the Fourth Fleet, provided the reminder:

One of the few things in English that I manage to read is Classical Philology.
I thought you might like to know that “Buck, Buck” is played in South
Africa. We used to play it as boys in the South African College School. As
I remember it, we used to say in Dutch

Bock, Bock, staan stijf,
Hoeveel vingers .. . ?

...I last played the game in 1918.

In a letter of April 17, 1940, Professor I. Schapera, of the School
of African Studies, University of Cape Town, wrote that no South
African tribes knew the game, though they have many games of
the same general type. He added, however, that it was widely
played by white children in South Africa and that he himself often
took part in the game there as a boy. His description of the manner
of playing runs as follows:

As far as I can remember, it is essentially a boys’ game, played by two
opposing teams, of roughly equal numbers, there being no fixed number of

players. It is known under the name of “‘Bok, bok, staan styf” (Afrikaans for
“Buck, buck, stand fast”). One boy stands with his back to a wall or tree.

294 THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL

Another faces him, bending over until his face rests in the clasped hands of
the first. Still another, on the same side, bends over behind him in the same
way, resting his head on the buttocks of the first boy in the line, and a third
and fourth, or whatever the number may be, line up behind, also bending
over. The boys on the other side then jump onto the backs of those bending
over; and one of those jumping, who has been chosen for the purpose, holds up
one or more fingers, and says:

Bok, bok, staan styf,
hoeveel vingers op jou lyf?
(Buck, buck stand fast; how many fingers on your body?)

One of the boys bending down has to guess; if he guesses correctly, the two
sides change positions; if he does not, the same side remains bending until it
has succeeded in guessing the correct number.!

Another description comes from Mr. H. J. van Zyl, a teacher in
the Lemana Training Institution, a Swiss mission in South Africa.”

The game is only played by boys because of the fact that it is too rough for
girls to participate in. Any number of boys can take part at a time, though
more than 20 (which means 10 on a side) would be too many and would only
cause disorder. When the boys decide to play bok-bok, two leaders are chosen,
A and B. A hides a stone in one of his hands and holds both clenched hands
out to B, who points at one of the hands, hoping that he will point to the one
containing the stone. If he succeeds, he gets first chance to pick for his team
from the boys available. The two leaders then carry on to pick in turn until
all the boys belong to the one or the other team. The fact that it sometimes so
happens that one team has one more man does not cause much dissatisfaction,
since only one man does not make such a great difference. As before, the stone
is hidden by one of the leaders to decide which team has to bow first. When
this is decided, the team which has to bow chooses a kussing (cushion). The
kussing stands firmly against a wall, tree, pillar, or any other fixed object.
All the rest of the team then bow in the following way: No. 1 presses his
shoulder firmly onto one thigh of the kussing, with his arms round the former’s
legs (upper parts). No. 2 bows in the same way, holding his shoulder against
the back part of No. 1’s thigh (right or left) and with his arms also firmly
clasped round No. 1’s legs. It is just as common tosee the boys following No. 1

? Professor Schapera believes that the game was introduced into the country from
Holland. South Africa was first settled by the Dutch, in 1652, and conquered by the
British in 1806.

* Mr. van Zyl is the author of an interesting and important article, “Some of the
Commonest Games Played by the Sotho People of the Northern Transvaal,” which was
published in the December, 1939 number of Bantu Studies.

NOTES 295

hold their heads between the legs of the one in front of them so that each
shoulder presses against a thigh. Like this they can stand much firmer and
the head is completely out of danger (which will become clear as we go on).
In this way all the boys of the team bow in a line, hanging on to one another.
A team is usually arranged so that the stronger men are just there in the line
where the most weight is going to be because, as we shall see, the others are
going to jump onto them.

The members of the other team stand about 15 to 20 yards away from the
last boy of those who bow. They choose their swiftest member to run and
jump first. This first one runs toward the line, presses with both hands on the
back of the rear boy, and at the same time flies as far along the line as possible
and comes down with a bang on the back of one of his opponents. He must
take much care not to let his feet touch the ground (if this happens, it becomes
his team’s time to bow down). All the others follow the first boy. Everyone
tries to jump as far as possible and so it sometimes happens that there are
3 or 4 boys on the back of a single one of the others. The following rules are
to be observed:

1. Those on top are not to touch the ground with any part of the body,
accidentally or otherwise.

2. They are not to move. They must be perfectly still where they landed
and no shifting into a better position is allowed.

3. Those bearing the burden must not subside, because if this is the cause
of the others’ touching the ground it will not count against the latter.

When all are on, the one who jumped first and who consequently is in front
holds out any number of fingers* and asks:

Bok-bok staan styf
hoeveel vingers op jou lyf?

The only opponent who sees the upheld fingers is the kussing, who is the wit-
ness and must see that there is no cheating. The front one of those bowing
answers the question, guessing the number. If he gives the right answer, his
team exchanges places with the other; if not, the game continues until the
right number is given.

Still another form of the game was described by Dr. H. Vedder,
of Okahandja, S.W.A., in 1939. After having questioned forty-two
natives of the Herero, Nama (Hottentot), Bergdama, and Ovambo
(Ovandonga and Ovakuanjama) tribes, Dr. Vedder came to the

* Sometimes the guessing is made less difficult by a mutual agreement that the fingers
of only one hand are to be used.

296 THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL

conclusion that the game is unknown in Southwest Africa.‘ How-
ever, he had seen it played in Africa by a German mother with her
four children. Dr. Vedder considers it hardly likely that she learned
it in Southwest Africa, but suggests that she may have become ac-
quainted with it in Germany during a brief stay there when she
was eighteen. I give the description in his own words:

Das Fraeulein pflegte sich auf ainen niedrigen Stuhl zu setzen. Dann traten
die vier Kinder, die sie zu betreuen hatten, um sie herum. Sie fing dann ohne
eine besondere Ordnung innezuhalten, z.B. bei der 6 jaehrigen Anna an, legte
sie ueber ihre Knie, sodass weder Fuesse noch Haende den Boden beruehrten
und das Gesicht nach unten gekehrt war, das Kind also nicht sehen konnte,
was oberhalb des Rueckens vor sich ging. (Die Augen wurden nicht ver-
bunden, es gehoerte aber zur Spielregel, dass das Kind nichts sehen durfte.)
Dann stiess das Fraeulein die kleine Anna mit den Ellenbogen bei gekruemm-
ten Armen mehrfach stampfend auf den Ruecken, dann wurde der Ruecken
mehrfach mit beiden Faeusten geschlagen, dann schliesslich mit den flachen
Haenden. Waehrend dieser Prozedur wurde ein Reim gesungen, in den der
Name des Kindes eingesetzt werden musste, etwa so:

“Kommt, wir wollen Anna fragen!
Anna soll die Wahrheit sagen.
Wenn sie luegt, wird sie geschlagen.

Wieviel Finger sind das?”

Bei dieser Frage nach der Anzahl der ausgestreckten Finger hoerten die
Stoesse mit Ellenbogen und Faeusten auf. Wurde die Fingerzahl richtig ge-
raten, so kam das folgende der sich herandraengenden Kinder an die Reihe,
ganz nach freier Wahl des Fraeuleins, und wurde ueber die Knie gelegt.

Wurde aber die Frage nicht richtig beantwortet, so fing die Prozedur mit
Ellenbogen, Faeusten, und flachen Haenden von vorn an, und der Reim wurde
abermals gesungen. Den Schluss bildete wieder die Frage: ‘‘Wieviel Finger
sind das?”

Pavut G. BREWSTER

« My description of “(How Many Horns?”, which I enclosed in the first letter to Dr.
Vedder, appears to have interested the natives greatly. Lest some future investigator
may find their descendants playing the game and think it indigenous, I feel that in all
fairness I should quote Dr. Vedder’s comment on the native reaction. (Sie alle ver-
neinten es, folgten aber der Darstellung mit grossem Interesse und Vergnuegen. Ich
bin ueberzeugt, dass es in kurzer Zeit auch in Suedwest gespielt werden wird.)

NOTES 297

AT THE THEATER

In the summer of 59 B.c. Cicero sent to Atticus a letter filled
with breezy political gossip, most of which concerns Caesar and
Pompey and the triumvirate (Ad Atticum n, 19). In section 3 he
remarks that the bitter attitude of the man in the street toward
the new coalition can best be apprehended at the theater. He then
proceeds to describe the derisive and riotous enthusiasm of the
people at a play given during the recent Judi A pollinares: certain
lines in the piece (written, of course, long before) were pounced
upon and applied by the hostile commons to the current situation,
an actor was compelled to repeat one of the lines “fa thousand
times,” and in general there was a most unseemly tumult.

Last February I had the pleasure of seeing Helen Hayes’s
new play, “Harriet,” a keen and sapient study of the Beecher
family and particularly of Harriet Beecher Stowe. In the second
act (time: about 1850), Harriet asks her brother Henry why the
great statesmen in Congress don’t do something about the ques-
tion of slavery. Henry replies: ‘““Why, sister, they aren’t great
statesmen; they are nothing but cheap, self-seeking, time-serving
politicians.”” The Washington audience howled with glee.

HuBERT MCNEILL POTEAT

Wake Forest College

SINE IRA ET STUDIO

Professor Ullman was on the right track in his attempt to trace
the origin of Tacitus’ famous word.' It is pretty obvious that the
Roman historian was not the originator of the sound formula,
sine ira et studio, which contains, in a nutshell, something like an
ethical basis for the profession of the historian. We know, on the
other hand, that Tacitus himself sinned exceedingly against this
sine qua non postulate of objectivity. It seems more than likely
that Tacitus by coining the famous phrase was re-echoing thoughts
which had occupied Cicero’s mind (De Oratore 11, 62). But here as

1 Cf. CLassicaL JOURNAL xxxvimt, 420 f.

298 THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL

almost everywhere Cicero passes on notions and ideas he had found
in the writings of Greek authors. The man to whom we must give
credit for having originated the phrase is Polybius. Cicero, who
asserted that writing history was essentially an orator’s work
(opus oratorium maxime), must have been greatly impressed by so
apt an expression as Polybius’ xwpls dpy7s 4 pOdvou (v1, 9), which
constitutes the most essential prerequisite for an impartial ap-
proach. With Greek literature and rhetoric Polybius’ views on
history and the duty of the historians had penetrated into Rome
soon after 150 B.c. Within the Scipionic circle he became a recog-
nized authority on political theories and “applied philosophy,” his
critical and dispassionate attitude being an outgrowth of his
Stoicism. Although his somewhat austere style was not considered
to serve as a model in Cicero’s time, Polybius certainly knew how
to write history digna voce. It appears that Cicero was very familiar
with Polybius’ work, which he even looked up for references (Ad
Aiticum xm, 30). We can, therefore, in all fairness assume that
Cicero might have adopted the Polybian formula, and Tacitus
probably read it in one of Cicero’s lost writings (Academica Pos-
teriora or the lost parts of De Re Publica).
H. W. L. FREUDENTHAL
Carleton College,
Northfield, Minn.

BOOK REVIEWS

[Review copies of classical books should be sent to the Editorial Office of the JouRNAL
at Washington University, St. Louis, Mo. Such works will always be listed in the depart-
ment of Recent Books, and those which seem most important to the readers of the
JouRNAL will also be reviewed in this department. The editor-in-chief reserves the right
of appointing reviewers.]

Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Edited by a committee of
the Classical Instructors of Harvard University, Vol. tu: Cam-
bridge, Harvard University Press (1942). Pp. 184.

This volume is fittingly dedicated to Edward Kennard Rand. It
contains the following articles: ‘‘“Some Aspects of Invisibility,” by
Arthur Stanley Pease (1-36) ; “The True Tragedy II,” by Helmut
Kuhn (37-88); “Corinthiaca,” by Sterling Dow (89-119); “The
Scope of Early Rhetorical Instruction,’ by Stanley Wilcox (121-
155) ; “Donatus and the Scholia Danielis: A Stylistic Comparison,”
by Albert H. Travis (157-169) ; Summaries of Dissertations for the
Degree of Ph. D., 1941-1942.

Mr. Pease begins with divine invisibility and then at greater
length develops its human counterpart. In the latter he notes that
men came to be thought of as associates of the divine, then as hav-
ing become divine. In time this latter conception was extended to
such humans as Alexander and Augustus with all the personal
equation involved in such deifications. Mr. Kuhn in his second
paper, on the “True Tragedy,” notes that Plato placed the ideal
state between two contrasting aspects of actuality in which the
unjust may destroy the just. It is this problem of the just man’s
situation that Mr. Kuhn will clarify. He does this by interpreting
the place of the poet in the rise and fall of the Best City and finds
that Plato saves the situation by becoming a poet in the tenth
book and emancipating the individual. Thus Mr. Kuhn reads the
story of man’s mind that disengages itself from the world to gain
its liberty and then rebuilds the world in its own image. Mr. Dow
in his “Corinthiaca” gives an example of how to make use of such

299

300 THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL

inscriptional fragments as we have from Corinth. Then noting that
these are confined mostly to dedications, with a few decrees, he
goes on to account for this paucity; the Corinth of Pre-Roman
days he visualizes as a community of quite ordinary people doing
little to call forth inscriptional activity nor interested in giving
such recognition to men or events. Mr. Wilcox in his study of early
rhetoric sees little in the a priori argument of his predecessors that
the prognostic element in deliberative oratory discouraged its
development in comparison with the factual basis of forensic ora-
tory and brings evidence to prove that the Athenian Assembly of
the fifth century was just the place to develop public oratory asa
necessary prerequisite to political leadership. Mr. Travis by com-
paring the style of the Scholia Danielis and Donatus’ commentary
on Terence confutes those who have held to the Donatean author-
ship of the former. Mr. Travis finds in this stylistic comparison
that Donatus was more alive in the presentation of his material
than the author of the Scholia Danielis. Space limitations prevent
one from saying more than that these papers show a great com-
mand of the material at hand and a great control of the wide sweep
involved in its interpretation. Again, in this volume one sees the
careful and resourceful editorship that makes students doubly
grateful for such pilotage through the reefs of publishing.
ARTHUR PatcH McKINLAY

University of Texas

PRENTICE, WILLIAM KELLY, The Ancient Greeks; Studies toward a
Better Understanding of the Ancient World: Princeton, Princeton
University Press (1940). Pp. 254. $3.00.

This book, which is the result of some forty years of study and
teaching, was written with the purpose, stated by Professor Pren-
tice in his Preface, of presenting “for a new consideration certain
matters concerning the ancient Greeks which we must understand
correctly if we are to profit by the experiences and achievements
of the ancient world” (vii). The author does not, therefore, intend
to write a complete history of the Greek people, but to discuss
topics and events in their life and in their history which are of
particular interest to us today. He shows also how the interpreta-

BOOK REVIEWS 301

tions of many of the problems have changed, partly because of
new literary and new archaeological sources, but mostly because
of the critical and scientific approach to history in the last hundred
years.

The captions of the ten chapters of this book indicate that the
subjects surveyed are in chronological order. Chapter 1, therefore,
naturally deals with “Greece before the Greeks,” in which the
author gives an interesting account of the Aegean civilization. He
describes in some detail the discoveries of archaeologists for this
period, but is very cautious in using them as a means of historical
reconstruction. He feels that there are too many unwarranted as-
sumptions and theories which have been made on the basis of ma-
terial finds and he points out especially that there is no convincing
evidence that the Mycenaeans, for example, ‘were Arcadians or
any other kind of Greeks” (p. 27).

In the second chapter, ‘‘When the Greeks Became a People,”
two reasons are given for the belief that the Greeks must have be-
come a definite people by the eighth century before Christ at the
latest. First, Greek settlements or colonies were founded in Italy
and in Asia as early as the middle of the eighth century. Second,
“the Homeric poems were the product of literary activity of Greeks
apparently in the ninth and eighth centuries and certainly after
the eighth century were current among Greeks everywhere” (p.
40). The problem of composition and of authorship of the Homeric
poems falls naturally into this chapter. In the discussion Professor
Prentice argues against the unitarian theory of authorship.

The causes leading to the Greek colonization from the middle of
the eighth century to about the middle of the sixth occupy the
third chapter of the book, “The Earliest Greeks.” This movement,
as the author observes, “gave the Greeks a knowledge of the world
beyond their own frontiers, contributed mightily to their growing
sense of nationality, and brought them into contact not only with
the uncivilized barbarians of the east and of the west, but also with
the cultured barbarians of Lydia, Assyria, Phoenicia, and Egypt”
(p. 71).

The following chapter, “Tyrants and the Emancipation of
Men’s Minds” contains a very interesting account of the rise of

302 THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL

tyranny in Greece and of the subsequent era (700-500 B.c.). This
era was characterized by a general trend toward democratic gov-
ernment and by an emancipation from, or a transformation of, tra-
ditions, former ideas, and ways of living among the Greeks.

In a presentation of the causes and the course of the Persian
Wars from 490-470 B.c. (Chapter v), an attempt is made to estab-
lish as far as possible the sequence of events in the battles of these
wars, an attempt handicapped of course, as Professor Prentice ob-
serves, by the paucity of documentary evidence, the main source
being Herodotus. In order to link ancient with modern history, a
comparison is drawn between the Greek and Persian naval battle
at Artemisium and that of the Germans and the English at Jutland
(p. 114), the withdrawal of the Greek fleet and that of the German
fleet respectively from the scene of action with the claim that they
were not defeated.

The next important problem in Greek history is the growth and
development of democracy (“Absolute Democracy,”’ Chapter v1).
The system as it developed in Athens was “as vicious as absolute
monarchy or absolute oligarchy, and its triumph at Athens in the
fifth century B.c. meant the unrestricted power of the largest class
of voters, the most thoughtless, the most bigoted, and the most ir-
responsible” (p. 152). Professor Prentice blames this disadvan-
tageous system of government for the ultimate destruction of the
Greek people.

In an account of the war of 431-404 B.c. and of the position and
the policies of the Athenian Empire during that period (‘“The
World War of 431-404 B.c.,” Chapter vit), the author presents not
only details of the actual course of the war but also criticizes and
discusses the standpoint and the conduct of the Athenian Empire.
He points out that some comparison is possible between the posi-
tion of England during the World War of 1914-1918 and that of
Athens in the Peloponnesian War (p. 154).

Since the history of Thucydides is important as a source of in-
formation about the Peloponnesian War, it is only natural and
logical that extensive study should be devoted to Thucydides
(“Thucydides the Historian,” Chapter vit). Not only does Pro-
fessor Prentice contribute his own opinions of the value of Thucy-

BOOK REVIEWS 303

dides’ work and give an appraisal of the speeches contained
therein, but he also presents some of the viewpoints and discus-
cussions of several outstanding scholars and critics of Thucydides.

A study of the fourth century shows the failure of the Spartan
government, and subsequently the Theban, to unite the Greeks
with any degree of success (“The Lost Opportunity,” Chapter rx).

These studies of the Ancient Greeks conclude with a description
of the rise to power and the widespread conquests of Alexander the
Great (“World Empire,” Chapter x). Emphasis is placed on the
possible reason for Alexander’s claim to divinity and on his requi-
sites for a world empire.

Professor Prentice has succeeded in giving a picture of the
Greeks as a real and living people. He has achieved this sense of
reality by showing that the Greeks were frequently driven or led
by many of the same motives that influence us and that have
directed the course of modern history. These studies are further
enlivened by the inclusion of the author’s own reactions to, and
vigorous interpretations of, the problems of Greek history—inter-
pretations with which we may not always agree entirely, but which
serve to stimulate our own thoughts and which lead us to a re-ex-
amination of the theories expressed by Professor Prentice and by
other eminent students of Greek antiquity.

ELIZABETH GRIER JOHANTGEN

Talladega, Alabama

Fyre, W. Hamitton, Aristotle’s Art of Poetry; A Greek View of
Poetry and Drama, with an Introduction and Explanations: New
York, Oxford University Press (1940).

In the note that precedes this work the author declares that he
reproduces the translation of Ingram Bywater, venturing only to
make slight changes. The reviewer therefore looks for the author’s
contribution to this much used and much translated work in the
Introduction and notes.

In the first place, the summaries at the head of each division,
with the author’s brief discussion of important points treated by
Aristotle, stimulate the general reader to keep his own critical
faculty on edge as he reads. And into the notes at the bottom of the

304 THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL

page is crowded much information on ancient authors and on spe-
cific works that are important. That the book is meant for the
general reader and not the specialist is indicated by the list of
helps cited at the end of the Introduction. This list might have
been broadened by the citing of at least Haigh’s works, The Attic
Theatre and Tragic Drama of the Greeks (Cf. p. 8, n. 1).

The Introduction touches on most of the problems that are usu-
ally considered in a study of the Poetics. First of all, Aristotle had
a practical aim in writing it: it was to be a text-book of instruction
(p. xv). Further, it had a direct moral aim, to show that the effect
of tragedy on the spectators is something that is good for them. In
this connection the subject of catharsis gets due attention; and, as
is the case with most writers on the subject, the author here, in the
opinion of the reviewer, assumes too easily the inevitable need of a
periodic “purge”’ of the emotions. He notes the difficulty involved
in a too frequent “‘purge” which could result to the devotee of the
cinema, if art in the cinema were at its best (p. xvii).

What the author has to say on the origins of tragedy seems to be
hardly definite enough and too inclusive. Tragedy was evolved,
he says, from various forms of religious ritual, such as the mimetic
worship of Dionysus, the ritual performed at the graves of heroes
or demi-gods, the choral hymns to Dionysus, and other forms of
choral lyric (p. xxviii). This statement of the case would hardly
satisfy Ridgeway or Pickard-Cambridge. Its virtue, of course, is
that it is broad enough to make room for dramatic and choral ele-
ments, but it merely means that on the much discussed question of
immediate origin the author does not commit himself. In a work for
the general reader he does not need to.

The volume is neatly printed and free from errors.

THOMAS SHEARER DUNCAN

Washington University

STARR, CHESTER G., JR., The Roman Imperial Navy: 31 B.c—
A.D. 324, “Cornell Studies in Classical Philology,” Vol. xxvi:
Ithaca, N. Y., Cornell University Press (1941). Pp. xv+ 228.
$2.50.

In this treatise Dr. Starr presents a thorough and comprehensive

BOOK REVIEWS 305

treatment of a subject that has been only too long neglected—the
Roman naval establishment of the Principate. Of the eight chap-
ters, the first is devoted to the origins of the fleets of Augustus,
the next four to a detailed study of the Italian fleets of Misenum
and Ravenna, one to the provincial squadrons in the Mediter-
ranean, another to the fleets on the northern frontier, and the last
to a survey of the role of the navy in the history of the Empire to
the victory of Constantine I over Licinius. The author points out
that there is no direct link between the imperial navy and the great
fleets raised by Rome for the Punic Wars and the wars in the East
before the time of Sulla; rather its antecedents are to be found in
the fleets of Sulla, of Pompey, and of the various leaders in the
Civil Wars, particularly, of course, that with which Octavian
triumphed at Actium.

It was Octavian, become Augustus, as Dr. Starr rightly em-
phasizes, who was the true founder of the imperial navy because
of his decision to maintain a permanent naval establishment in
times of peace as well as of war, because its organization with two
main fleets at Misenum and Ravenna with subsidiary units else-
where was his work, and because he laid down the general rules
which governed the conditions of naval service for the future. It is
in this latter connection that the author makes his most important
single contribution in this volume—a convincing refutation of
Mommsen’s theory that the fleet belonged to the emperor, not to the
state, and under Augustus and Tiberius the sailors of the fleet were
imperial slaves or freedmen, that from Claudius to Hadrian they
were peregrini, and from Hadrian to Carcalla they had the status
of Latins. By careful use of the rather scanty literary and inscrip-
tional evidence Dr. Starr is able to show that from the outset the
fleet was a public and not a personal institution. Having that
status, it could not be and was not manned by slaves. In fact, the
seamen and officers included both freemen and freedmen until as
late as Domitian, although the number of the latter class must
have been very small under the successors of Augustus. Peregrini
supplied the majority of recruits from the time of Augustus and
required no special dispensation from Claudius to admit them to
this service; and it is from about 71 A.p., not under Hadrian, that

306 THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL

the use of Latin names by the seamen became common, although
without any indication that this meant conferment of Latin rights
by Vespasian, who, however, may have relaxed in the case of the
navy the ban imposed by Claudius upon the use of the Roman
name form by peregrini. Hadrian made no change in the citizen-
ship of the sailors; after 212 a.p., of course, they would normally be
Roman citizens by virtue of the Constitutio Antoniniana. With re-
spect to the privileges of the sailors, it is suggested that Marcus
Aurelius may have granted them the right of matrimonium; and
the view is taken that the issuance of diplomas to veterans of the
fleet, along with those of the praetorian and urban cohorts, even
after 212 A.D., was the survival of an honored custom which had a
real value in attesting the privileges of ex-service men who might
retire to areas distant from those where the units to which they
had been attached were stationed.

The picture which Dr. Starr draws of the life and duties of the
naval personnel is as full and realistic as the sources permit. The
Imperial Navy did not have a thrilling history, crammed with
memorable exploits. Its duties were largely of a routine nature—
suppression of piracy, convoying of troops, transportation of of-
ficials, patrol duties on the frontiers, occasionally military service
on shore—yet it performed an important, if subordinate task in the
preservation of the pax Romana and the maintenance of the unity
of the Empire. Here, as elsewhere, the Augustan organization
broke down in the crisis of the third century and was not revived
in the new order of Diocletian and Constantine the Great.

A prosopographia of the prefects of the several fleets, an index
of inscriptions and papyri, and a general index conclude the vol-
ume. There is no general bibliography, but references to sources
and other authorities are given in the notes which follow each
chapter.

A. E. R. Boax

University of Michigan

HINTS FOR TEACHERS

[Edited by Grace L. Beede, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, S. D. The
aims of this department are threefold: to assist the inexperienced teacher of classics,
to help the experienced teacher keep in touch with matters of interest to the professional
world, and to serve as a receiving center and distributing point for questions and con-
tributions on teaching problems. Questions will be answered by mail or in the pages of
this department. Contributions in the form of short paragraphs dealing with projects,
tests, interest devices, methods, and material are requested. Anything intended for
publication should be typed on stationery of regular size. All correspondence should be
addressed to the editor of this department.]

The Romans Off Guard: Slang and Defense Mechanisms’

As we are all aware, these critical war days are bringing about
a re-thinking of the purposes of education in democratic America.
Amid conflicting theories there is at least one purpose upon which
all will agree, i.e. the need for making our boys and girls responsible
citizens with wider sympathies and clearer understandings. There
is also a growing recognition that the study of the liberal arts best
promotes the development of such sympathies and understandings.
As one writer states:

A child whose experiences are limited to the narrow confines of his com-
munity or of his state must necessarily have a limited education. . . . Mean-

ingful, emotionalized, and vicarious experiences can best be provided for
through the areas of art, literature, and music.?

The classical literature of Rome has long been recognized as an
instrument for increasing one’s perspective on civilization and
deepening one’s insight on human problems. The question I wish
to raise is whether we are utilizing to the full the opportunities
provided in that literature for giving our students such meaning-
ful, emotionalized experiences through actually knowing the
Romans as human beings. It has seemed to me that current dis-
cussions emphasize the desirability of knowing about Roman life
and history but overlook the importance of knowing the Romans
themselves. This opportunity of knowing and feeling akin to a

1 A paper read before the Ohio Classical Conference, Toledo, Ohio, October 28, 1943°
* “Hints for Teachers,’’ CLassICAL JOURNAL, Xxx1x (1943), 47.

307

308 THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL

people remote in time and place and language would seem to be of
unique value at this time. Both winning the war and making
the peace will require tolerance and understanding of foreign
peoples. The student who has felt a kinship with the Romans of
two thousand years ago is more ready and able to feel his relation-
ship with his foreign contemporaries.

The question now arises as to how the student can be brought to
feel this kinship. It is not an automatic by-product of studying
the Latin language. Moreover, knowledge about the life of the
Romans is not enough, though it helps. The characters found in
the “made Latin” stories of the elementary textbooks are usually
obvious projections of the American imagination on imaginary
mythological heroes. There is still a problem even when the study
of actual Latin literature gives contact with the flesh-and-blood
Romans of Caesar, Cicero, and Vergil. Frequently these charac-
ters are too mature, too heroic, and too much on dress parade to
appeal to the students as people like themselves and their ac-
quaintances. The truth of this statement is confirmed by the usual
reaction of delighted surprise on the first reading of Cicero’s letters.
Haskell, in his recent biography of Cicero,’ speaks of this appeal
of the “‘off-the-record”’ letters, and remarks that though Petrarch
was shocked to learn of Cicero’s weaknesses and foibles, his final
reaction was one of compassion for the man in contrast with ad-
miration for his genius. This compassion is part of the feeling of
kinship.

Moreover, we have all experienced a similar sense of our common
humanity on reading a Roman comedy, the satirical novel of Pe-
tronius, or Tacitus’ biting analyses of human motives. Human
weaknesses, with their frequently funny aspects revealed in the
struggles of everyday people in their unguarded moments, have a
universal appeal. Thus these Romans off guard are more knowable
and likable than when on dress parade. They feel, speak, and act
in ways we understand, because they are our ways or ways we have
observed in those about us. As one psychologist puts it:

The understanding of people and of peoples, then, is not an intellectual but
an emotional achievement: feeling, so far as one is capable, the same feelings

*H. J. Haskell, This Was Cicero: New York, Alfred A. Knopf (1942), 99 f.

HINTS FOR TEACHERS 309

as they feel in the same situations; knowing, not as a statement of fact, but
as one’s own experience, what it is like.‘

It would seem highly desirable, therefore, that students should
read the plays, letters, satires, and history referred to above, and
this is usually done by college students. The problem of bringing
such material into the experience of the high-school student is
much more difficult. But even when time is limited, a teacher can
introduce incidentally from the above literature examples of cer-
tain aspects of Roman off-guard behavior that will aid materially
in the development of the understanding of the Romans as real
people.

For the purpose of illustration I wish to speak briefly about
two such aspects of Roman behavior: (1) the use of slang, and
(2) the use of defense mechanisms. Both of these are outgrowths
of the feelings and desires rather than of the thought of the people,
and this is important for our purpose, since, to quote the psycholo-
gist again: “We understand best people with similar motives and
sentiments to our own.’

Another reason for presenting the use of slang is that it appeals
strongly to students. Slang has always belonged primarily to the
young, and with the development of many new slang expressions
in the armed forces, interest in it is now especially keen. Students
are delighted to find that the Romans used slang, and that it fol-
lowed patterns and grew out of needs similar to those of American
slang. The extent of this similarity becomes apparent from a com-
parison of the slang found in Plautus, Terence, and Petronius with
the analysis of American slang made by Sechrist.®

In brief, he defines slang as the employment of a usual word in
an unusual sense, or of an unusual word in a usual sense, the use
being regarded as vulgar or inelegant. More particularly he dis-
tinguishes several types of slang: (1) the use of ordinary words and
phrases in arbitrary and inelegant senses; (2) the use of adapted
foreign words; (3) the use of new words or phrases coined largely

*H. G. Wyatt, The Art of Feeling: New York, Houghton Mifflin Co. (1932), 47 f.

5H. G. Wyatt, op. cit., 40.

* F. K. Sechrist, “The Psychology of Unconventional Language,” The Pedagogical
Seminary xx (1913), 414-457.

310 THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL

by the lower classes from similarities of sound or for its humorous
effects; and (4) the use of abbreviations and mutilations of lan-
guage. Other frequent characteristics of slang which he lists are
concrete picturesqueness, humor, and euphemism. Moreover, he
calls attention to the fact that the invention of slang requires a
sympathetic social atmosphere as well as an individual’s desire for
variety, clearness, force, or surprise. Hence we find slang com-
monly developed among the young and light-hearted in social
groups such as the school,’ sports, trades, and the armed forces.

Let us now see how Roman slang fits into this pattern of Ameri-
can slang. As an example of type (1) listed above, i.e. the use of
ordinary words in arbitrary and inelegant senses, we find a beauti-
ful girl referred to as a bellum pomum (Petronius, Sat. 57, 3), “a
pretty apple’’; compare our “peach.” Again, a good source of in-
come is described as “having bread in it,” habet haec res panem
(Petronius, Sat. 46, 7); compare our use of “dough.”

Type (2), the adaptation of foreign words, such as our “hoi pol-
loi” and “bon ton,” is represented by such terms as fopanta (Pe-
tronius, Sat. 37, 5), one’s “all in all,’”’ and excatarissasti me, (Petro-
nius, Sat. 67, 10), “you have cleaned me out.”

A large number of Latin slang phrases fall under type (3), the
use of new words or phrases coined from similarities of sound or
for humorous effects. We have bacciballum (Petronius, Sat. 61, 6),
“a butterball,” agaga (Petronius, Sat. 69, 1), “‘rogue,’’ and domi-
nus dupunduarius (Petronius, Sat. 58, 15), a “two-penny master.”
Our description of a speaker as “full of hot air” is paralleled by
nondum efflaverat omnia (Petronius, Sat. 49, 1), “he had not yet
puffed out everything.” Examples of type (4), abbreviations and
mutilations of language, are impossible to detect in Latin because
of the likelihood of errors in the manuscript readings.

A concretely picturesque and humorous expression applied to
the rich is valde succosi (Petronius, Sat. 38, 7), ‘very juicy.”’ Eu-
phemism is represented as follows: a drunken man is plane matus
(Petronius, Sat. 41, 12), “quite soaked’’; the glutton says mensam
detergeo (Plautus Men. 78) “I make a clean sweep of the table”;

7 See Dorothy M. Schullian’s “College Slang,” School and Society, Vol. tv (1943),
169 f.

HINTS FOR TEACHERS 311

and someone protests to a bore, cantilenam eandem canis (Terence,
Phorm. 495), “you sing the same old tune.”

Social groups produce the following examples: (1) Sports:
quadrigae meae decurrerunt (Petronius, Sat. 64, 3), “my four-horse
chariots have passed,’ i.e. “I have the gout.” (2) TRADEs: clavo
tabulari fixum est (Petronius, Sat. 75, 8), “it is fastened with a ten-
inch nail,” i.e. “fixed for good.” (3) Poxrtics: scisti uti foro (Ter-
ence, Phorm. 79), “You know how to use the forum,” i.e. “you
know how to use the forum,” i.e. “you know your way around.”
(4) Mirirary life: per scutum per ocream (Petronius, Sat. 61, 9),
“by shield and greave,” our “‘by hook or crook.”

Even such a brief analysis as this helps the student feel that the
ancients are not so ancient after all, and that Romans and Ameri-
cans really speak the same language.

The second aspect of Roman off-guard behavior which I suggest
for consideration is the use of defense mechanisms or psychological
devices used under stress—those evasions, alibis, and self-decep-
tions familiar to us all. The student feels genuine understanding
and gains in his own emotional balance when he discovers the
Romans struggling to get out of difficulties or bolster their egos by
the same old methods that still don’t work.

The writer who describes Roman behavior of this sort with the
keenest insight is Tacitus. He provides examples of every kind of
defense mechanism—a fact which would seem to indicate similar
feelings and reactions in both Romans and Americans under simi-
lar conditions. Strecker lists these examples as follows, with ex-
amples taken from the writings of Tacitus:*

1. REGRESSION—a term used broadly to cover various forms of
withdrawal from reality, i.e. the refusal to face facts and to respond
to them in a mature manner.

Tacitus gives us the following example in the description of the
incompetent and dissolute Vitellius when his destruction was fast
closing in on him: umbraculis hortorum abditus, ut ignava animalia,
quibus si cibum suggeras, iacent torpentque, praeterita instantia
futura pari oblivione dimiserat. (Tacitus, Hist. m1, 36). And again:

* E. A. Strecker, “The Man and the Mob,” Mental Hygiene xx1v (1940), 529 ff.

312 THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL

Quip pe confitenti consultantique supererant spes viresque: cum e con-
trario laeta omnia fingeret, falsis ingravescebat. (Tacitus, Hist. m1,

54; Loeb, 419)

2. RATIONALIZATION—the habit of making up reasons for doing
what we want to do. The false reasons are always such as bolster
the ego and conceal some fault which the real reason would reveal.
The Roman senators indulged in this device in the manner of
modern politicians. Tacitus quotes one of them as follows:
Gallus Asinius disseruit. . . . Distinctos senatus et equitum census, non quia
diversi natura, sed ut sicut locis, ordinibus, dignationibus antistent, ita iis
quae ad requiem animi aut salubritatem corporum parentur, nisi forte claris-
simi cuique plures curas, maiora pericula subeunda, delenimentis curarum et
periculorum carendum esse. Facilem adsensum Gallo sub nominibus honestis
confessio vitiorum et similitudo audientium dedit. (Tacitus, Amn. 1, 33).

A strangely Nazi-like sentiment is uttered by a Roman general
as he endeavors to persuade his men that they should attack the
Gauls: Nunc hostis, quia molle servitium; cum spoliati exutique
fuerint, amicos fore. (Tacitus, Hist. tv, 57) Again, the Germans de-
fended their laziness and love of war by the following specious rea-
soning: pigrum quin immo et iners videtur sudore adquirere quod
possis sanguine parare. (Tacitus, Germ. 14)

3. SEGREGATION—refusal to see inconsistency in thought and ac-

tion.
Tacitus records an example where lust for loot blinded Roman

soldiers to love of their country: “Non Italia adiri nec loca sedesque
patriae videbantur: tamquam externa litora et urbes hostium urere
vastare rapere eo atrocius, quod nihil usquam provisum adversum

metus. (Tacitus, Hist. 1, 12)
Inconsistent action is more or less typical of mobs, and we find

the Roman mob true to type: Et volgus eadem pravitate insectabatur
interfectum qua foverat viventem. (Tacitus, Hist. 11, 85)

4, Repress1on—the habit of actively forgetting that which is un-

pleasant.
Tacitus describes Claudius after the death of Messalina as fol-

lows:

HINTS FOR TEACHERS 313

Ne secutis quidem diebus odii gaudii, irae tristitiae, ullius denique humani
adfectus signa dedit, non cum laetantis accustores aspiceret, non cum filios
maerentis. Iuvitque oblivionem eius senatus censendo nomen et effigies
privatis ac publicis demovendas. (Tacitus, Ann. x1, 38)

Otho recommends repression to his soldiers: Paucorum culpa
fuit, duorum poena erit: ceteri abolete memoriam foedissimae noc-
lis. (Tacitus, Hist. 1, 84).

5. Proyection—defending oneself by blaming others.

Roman generals and soldiers alike indulged in this practice, as
can be seen from the following: Trepidus ad haec Vitellius pauca
purgandi sui causa respondit, culpam in militem conferens, cuius
nimio ardori imparem esse modestiam suam. (Tacitus, Hist. m1, 70)
And: Victi, quod tum in morem verterat, non suam ignaviam, sed
perfidiam legati culpabant. (Tacitus, Hist. rv, 27)

6. IDENTIFICATION—taking for oneself the credit due another or
others.

Tacitus describes a conceited leader as identifying himself with
his whole army: Quod discordis dispersasque Vitellii legiones eques-
tri procella, mox peditum vi per diem noctemque fudisset, id pulcher-
rimum et sui operis. (Tacitus, Hist. m1, 53)

He recognizes the close relationship between the mechanisms of
identification and projection, and links the two in the following
quotation: Iniquissima haec bellorum condicio est: Prospera omnes
sibi vindicant, adversa uni imputantur. (Tacitus, Agr. 27)

7. COMPENSATION—activity, often excessive, in one line to make
up for an inadequacy, real or imagined, in another.

Tacitus notes this type of effort put forth by Germanicus to com-
pensate for his temptation: Sed Germanicus quanio summae spei
propior, tanto impensius pro Tiberio niti. (Tacitus, Ann. 1, 34)
Again, the emperor tried to make up for his jealous hate by an out-
ward show of regard, and gave himself away by overdoing it: et
perisse Germanicum nulli iactantius maerent quam qui maxime
laetantur. (Tacitus, Ann. 11, 77)

From such an analysis it becomes clear that the Romans were
indeed human beings with reactions such as ours. In this way stu-

314 THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL

dents may be helped toward that desired emotional achievement of
understanding another people, described by the psychologist
quoted above as “feeling, so far as one is capable, the same feelings
as they feel in the same situations; knowing, not as a statement of
fact, but as one’s own experience, what it is like.”’® Then, after such
a realization of the humanity of the Romans in their lighter and
lower moments, the students are better prepared to proceed to a
sympathetic understanding of the more noble and profound ex-
pressions of Roman character.

To sum up, among the contributions of Latin literature, not the
least is the opportunity of gaining an understanding of another
people, and hence, by generalization, of other peoples. May we all
be alert to discover and use whatever material may further this
end, that our students may become the wiser human beings needed
for victory and a just and lasting peace.

KATHRYN S. BENNETT

Lake Erie College

Painesville, Ohio

° H. G. Wyatt, op. cit., 48.

CURRENT EVENTS

[Edited by George E. Lane, Thayer Academy, Braintree, Mass., for territory covered
by the Association of New England and the Atlantic States; John N. Hough, Ohio
State University, Columbus, Ohio, for the Middle States east of the Mississippi River;
Russell M. Geer, Tulane University, New Orleans, La., for the Lower Mississippi Val-
ley and the Southwest; Kevin Guinagh, Eastern State Teachers’ College, Charleston,
Iil., and Franklin H. Potter, the University of Iowa, Iowa City, Ia., for the Middle
Western States. News from the Pacific Coast may be sent to Fred L. Farley, College of
the Pacific, Stockton, Calif.

This department will present everything that is properly news of general appeal, but
considerations of space compel the editors to ask that items be made as brief as possible.
Whenever feasible it is preferable to print programs of meetings which would draw an
attendance from a large area as live news in advance of the date rather than as dead
news after the event. In this connection it should be remembered that the December
issue, e.g., appears on November fifteenth, and that items must be in hand five or six
weeks in advance of the latter date.]

Education for Freedom

Outstanding American educators will discuss the nation’s educational prob-
lem with the American people over a nation-wide radio network each Monday
night, Education for Freedom, Inc. announced recently. The initial broad-
cast was heard on Monday evening, December 13, from 10:15 to 10:30 P.m.,
Eastern War Time, over radio station WOR and a Mutual network, with
Mark Van Doren as the first speaker in this new educational series.

Education for Freedom, Inc. is a new, non-profit organization formed by a
group of American citizens concerned with the educational situation. It plans
to serve as a rallying place for other Americans who share its belief that
American education must reawake to the need for better informed, more
responsible, and more thoughtful citizens. It believes that we must be better
prepared by education for our free citizenship.

This new series of country-wide broadcasts will bring to the microphone
each Monday evening a number of distinguished educators and leaders of
thought, including Walter Lippmann, noted journalist ; Robert Hutchins, presi-
dent of the University of Chicago; Joseph A. Brandt, president of the Uni-
versity of Oklahoma; Stringfellow Barr, president of St. John’s College,
Annapolis; Pitirim Sorokin, professor of sociology at Harvard University;
John U. Nef, professor of economic history at the University of Chicago;
Alfred Noyes, educator and author; Robert I. Gannon, S.J., president of
Fordham University; Mortimer Adler, author and a member of the faculty
of the University of Chicago; Alexander Meiklejohn, writer and professor

315

316 THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL

emeritus at the University of Wisconsin; Scott Buchanan, dean of St. John’s
College; and John Erskine, author and professor emeritus of Columbia Uni-
versity.

The directors of this new organization are as follows: the Rev. James Harry
Price, president; George D. Harris, vice-president; Rupert Zickl, treasurer;
Stringfellow Barr, the Rev. Stephen F. Bayne, Jr., Raymond Rubicam, and
Justin R. Whiting. Martha Linn is executive secretary.

The Advisory Council for Education for Freedom, Inc. is made up of the fol-
lowing: Dr. Victor. L. Butterfield, president of Wesleyan University; Dr.
Gordon Keith Chalmers, president of Kenyon College; Dr. Louis Finkelstein,
president of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America; the Rev. Francis I.
Gannon, S.J., president of Fordham University; Dr. Virginia C. Gildersleeve,
dean of Barnard College; Dr. Clark Kuebler, president of Ripon College;
Dr. Felix Morley, president of Haverford College; Dr. John M. Potter, presi-
dent of Hobart College; and Dr. Charles C. Tillinghast, principal of the
Horace Mann School for Boys.

We are publishing this announcement because we think these discussions
will be of very great interest and importance to friends of the classics.

Indiana Classical Section

The Classical Section of the Indiana State Teachers’ Association held its
annual meeting in the Antlers Hotel at Indianapolis on October 21, 1943. The
president, Dr. Mars M. Westington, of Hanover College, presided at all three
sessions.

The morning program opened with a group of songs by the Madrigal
Singers, of Arsenal Technical High School, Indianapolis. “Roman Trade and
Commerce with the East” was the title of a paper presented by Miss Ruth E.
Robertson, of Jeffersonville. Miss Gertrude Ewing, of Indiana State Teachers’
College, Terre Haute, in a paper entitled “Why Students Like Latin’”’ offered
many practical suggestions for making the Latin course interesting for the
student. The significant role which the classics can play in helping America
face the vital issues of today and tomorrow was ably set forth in a panel
discussion led by Dr. Verne B. Schumann, of Indiana University (chairman);
Miss Cynthia Demaree, of Elwood; Miss Elizabeth Roberts, of Broad Ripple
High School, Indianapolis; and Miss Mary Louise Scifres, of Lebanon. Miss
Lillian Gay Berry, Professor Emeritus of Latin in Indiana University, was
made the recipient of an address prepared in her honor by Miss Dade B.
Shearer, retired Professor of Latin in De Pauw University. Mention was made
of Miss Berry’s varied contributions to classical studies during the last half-
century and to her work as founder of the Classical Section of the Indiana
State Teachers’ Association, as permanent secretary for twenty-five years,
and as an active member for forty-eight years.

At the luncheon meeting Dr. George D. Hadzsits, visiting Professor of

CURRENT EVENTS 317

Latin at Indiana University, gave a vigorous talk on the subject “The Clas-
sics and a Glimpse into the Future.”

The principal speaker at the afternoon session was Professor Clyde Murley,
of Northwestern University, who delivered an address entitled ‘‘In Praise of
the Less Abundant Life.’”” Mrs. Adele Bittner, of Indiana University, con-
cluded the program with some timely observations on ‘““The Indiana State
Latin Contest.”

Colorful mural posters and other artistic exhibits helpful to the classics
teacher were exhibited by Mrs. Matilda McKrill, of Martinsville; Miss
Elizabeth Davis, of Manual Training High School; and Miss Grace Emery, of
Arsenal Technical High School, Indianapolis.

A record attendance of 465 clearly shows that Indiana’s classicists are not
discouraged by the tendencies of the times, but are still fired with an ardent
enthusiasm for a branch of learning which they believe can make an invaluable
contribution to the present war program and the future peace.

The officers for 1944 are: president, Mrs. Iva C. Head, George Washington
High School, Indianapolis; vice-president, Miss Ruth E. Robertson, Jeffer-
sonville; secretary, Mrs. Matilda McKrill, Martinsville.

St. Louis University

The Saint Louis University Classical Club in conjunction with Beta Zeta
Chapter of Eta Sigma Phi, meeting Sundays at 2:20 p.m. at the University
or at one of its corporate colleges, is carrying out a program on the general
topic, ‘“Today’s Events in the Light of Yesterday.”

February 20 at Maryville College. Glimpses of Global War: “Struggle for
Supremacy—Greece and Persia,” Webster College; ‘‘World Wars in the
West—Rome and Carthage,” St. Louis University; “Greek Triumph at
Plataea,”’ Fontbonne College; “Scipio Africanus the Elder—Conqueror of
Hannibal,’’ Maryville College.

March 19 at the University. Anticipations of Basic English: “Greek
Koiné, Common Language of the East,” University; “Latin, Mother Language
of the West,” Fontbonne; “How an Ancient Traveler Knowing Greek Might
Fare in the East,” Maryville; ‘““Examples of Latin as a Key to the Romance
Languages,’ Webster.

April 16 at Webster College. Ancient International Reconstruction: ‘‘Philo-
sophic Ideals—the Stoic Cosmopolis,” Webster; ““The Patriot in Cicero’s
Dream of Scipio,” Maryville; “Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic Emperor,” Univer-
sity; Presidential Address, “The World under Rome in the Second Century
of Our Era,”’ Fontbonne.

Mary McCabe, of Fontbonne College, is president and Martha Fagan, of
Maryville College, is secretary of the Classical Club.

Beta Zeta Chapter of Eta Sigma Phi holds meetings at least twice a semes-
ter, usually on Sunday evenings, at the homes of members. John R. Maguire is
president and Herbert J. Gebhart is secretary.

ee ee

318 THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL

Chicago—Henry Washington Prescott

With the death of Henry Washington Prescott, which occurred on the
thirteenth day of June, 1943, the Classical Association of the Middle West and
South and the American Philological Association have lost an eminent
member.

Mr. Prescott was born at Boston on the thirtieth of July, 1874, and entered
Harvard in 1892. He received the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1895 and that
of Doctor of Philosophy in 1901 after teaching one year at Trinity College
and two at Harvard. In this year he came to Berkeley, for which he forever
afterwards held a warm affection. For thirty-one years, 1909-1940, however,
he taught at the University of Chicago. During this period, he conducted
classes and lectured at many other colleges and universities. Upon his retire-
ment from Chicago, he was appointed visiting professor at the American
Academy in Rome; but the war, in which his three sons are serving, prevented
his going to Italy. He spent his last two years at Princeton as visiting professor
on the Andrew F. West Foundation.

As a scholar, Mr. Prescott’s early publications were concerned with
Plautus and Hellenistic Greek Literature. These interests were later combined
in his series of articles on the antecedents of Hellenistic Comedy. These arti-
cles introduced important correctives to widely accepted views. Next he
turned from the Alexandrine poets to the greatest of the Augustans, Virgil,
who had long fascinated him. His book, The Development of Virgil’s Art,
well fulfilled the function for which it was designed: the deepening of the
usual reader’s appreciation of Virgil. His subsequent publications were con-
cerned mainly with Roman Comedy. The total of his contributions in this
field is impressive, and their soundness assures him a permanent place in the
history of classical scholarship.

If his interests were centered in the higher reaches of education and culture,
he was not oblivious to the problems of the lower. Some solutions to these were
suggested in a brilliant paper entitled, ‘‘General Education: Its Nature, Scope,
and Essential Elements” (Proceedings of the Institute for Administrative Officers
of Higher Education, 1934).

Mr. Prescott was an ideal teacher. Few of his years at Chicago passed with-
out the appearance of one or more doctoral dissertations written under his
direction. Indeed, much of his time and energy was consumed in painstaking
criticism of these studies. His seminars were models of exact training in the
techniques of research and in the scrutiny of texts, which he interpreted
aculissime—to use a word applied to one of his textual notes by W. M.
Lindsay. Intolerant of slovenly work and mercilessly severe in assignments, he
made accomplishment a necessity; welcoming points of view different from
his own, he stimulated independence of judgment; scrupulously cautious
never to use his students to forward his own investigations, he fostered their
capacities for original work. His learning was inspiring; but emulation was

CURRENT EVENTS 319

hopeless, and even his approval, though generously given, came as a distinct
surprise until one realized that he never applied his own standard of perfection
to the criticism of others.

He was a gracious host, a brilliant conversationalist, an urbane humanist.
With characteristic generosity, he suggested to his wife that his books, which
included a splendid collection on Plautus, be given to students, preferably his
own. In this, as in other instances, he was a second father to more than one of
his many students.

Puitip W. HarsH

Stanford University

New York—In Memoriam Clinton Walker Keyes, September 17, 1888—August
5, 1943

By birth and ancestry a son of New England, Clinton Walker Keyes was
educated at Princeton University, where he received his A.B. in 1910 and his
Ph.D. in 1913. After a supplementary year of study at the University of Berlin
he returned to his Alma Mater for two years as instructor in classics, but was
then called to the University of North Carolina, where he taught until 1920,
except for the period, 1917-1918, of his service as field artillery officer in the
U. S. Army. In 1920 he joined the staff of Columbia University as instructor
and won recognition by successive promotions until in 1938 he was made full
professor of Greek and Latin. He had already, in the previous year, been ap-
pointed Executive Officer of the department.

His special field of research was Greek papyrology, though he published, in
1928, in the ‘Loeb Classical Library” an admirable annotated translation of
Cicero’s De Re Publica and De Legibus; at different times contributed to
classical journals articles and constructive reviews dealing with a wide range
of problems connected with Greek and Latin authors; and also, with evident
control of the material and a soundness of judgment that won high praise
from experts in epigraphy and from the American Council of Learned Socie-
ties, organized and published four new fascicles (aggregating ninety-six pages)
in continuation of the monumental Olcott Dictionary of Latin Inscriptions.
He was from the outset one of a very small group associated with Professor
W. L. Westermann in the editing and publication of the Columbia collection
of Greek papyri. In this work his conscientiousness and tireless industry had
gradually made him a reader and editor of the first rank.

Pessessed of a shrewd and inquiring mind, inclined to be skeptical of de-
finitive views and so ever ready to weigh impartially the claims of alleged new
facts and new interpretation of material already familiar, Professor Keyes
was also innately averse to extreme positions in any argument, relying rather
on the intrinsic powers of reason and logic to sift out the elements of truth in
opposing contentions. In all his relations with his fellow-beings, whether as
scholar, teacher, administrator, or associate, he was the embodiment of a

320 THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL

pervasive kindliness of disposition coupled with a high serenity of spirit, an
aequus animus for which Horace would have praised him. His early death
(his years were not yet fifty-five) is a loss of tragic import to all who love classi-
cal scholarship.

Netson G. McGREA

Columbia University

The Humanities in the Army

On March 5, 1943, President Mead, of Washington College, Chestertown,
Maryland, delivered a Phi Beta Kappa address entitled ““Whose Hand at the
Helm?” at Birmingham Southern College, an address in which the classics
were strongly upheld. This address eventually was distributed to the alumni
of Washington College, and so came into the hands of Ab Mooney. Ab had
worked in science as his major field of study, but wrote to President Mead,
after reading the latter’s address:

Strangely enough, I must confess that my attitude toward Liberal Arts in the early
years of my college was just contrary to my present ideas. Although I never spoke much
of it, in my first two years I entertained a feeling of contempt for those professors who
were always emphasizing the enlightening values of the arts courses. I found it quite
difficult to understand why it was necessary for a student to be required to take two
full years of English, History, Economics, Social Sciences, while only one year of a
Science was necessary to complete a course at Washington College. Being a Science
student, naturally I was biased. But as time has passed, I feel that I have matured. My
present outlook on education is entirely different, and now I realize more than ever the
necessity of such things as the Classics, Art, and Philosophy. I don’t see how an edu-
cated person can be happy without them.

In my free hours I have taken to reading philosophy, and now I agree with you whole-
heartedly that an understanding of Liberal Arts is one way that will lead to a better
world of the future. The study of science is still in my blood, but I feel that whatever
intellectual happiness I now possess has come from my basic liberal education. I pray
that you will always remain firm for the arts, and indeed your efforts will not have

been in vain....
Sincerely,
Ab.

Kentucky

The Kentucky Classical Association held its twenty-fifth annual meeting
in Lexington November 5 and 6, 1943. A smaller group than usual, but a very
enthusiastic one, listened to papers from members of the Association and
guests from outside fields. Officers for the coming year were elected as follows:
president, Dr. Judson Allen Tolman, Georgetown College; vice-president,
Miss Mary Wood Brown, Henry Clay High School, Lexington; secretary-
treasurer, Brother John Drerup, Catholic High School, Covington. The 1944
meeting was set for Georgetown.

* Published in the Association of American Colleges Bulletin, Vol. xxtx, No. 2, May,
1943,